When looking at the back of a novel that depicts a murderer case you usually see the basic plot of the novel being that of finding the murderer’s identity. In Cold Blood on the other hand is that of finding the murderer’s motive. In Truman Capote’s masterpiece In Cold Blood, he organizes it in a way in which you are familiar with the murderer’s names and lives, but you are searching for the deeper meaning of the whole situation. The unique style that Capote presents makes the novel very entertaining for the reader, which will keep readers wanting to read his masterpiece. The main reason Capote organizes his novel this way is so his novel’s uniqueness will always keep the reader wanting the reasons for everything.
Capote starts off the novel with the day of the murder. The way Capote makes this beginning part of the novel unique is by leaving out reasons for why Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are on their journey to Holcomb, Kansas. As the reader reads this portion of the book they are curious of the many things that are going on. For instance as you read of the two men arriving into Holcomb you wonder how they happen to receive such descriptive directions of every detail to find there destination which we know as the Clutter household. Capote gives the reader something to wonder about by doing this, as later on you get Floyd Well’s portion of involvement in the Clutter’s deaths. Capote makes the reader assume that the victims are on the verge of being murdered through his great use of foreshadowing. This is important, because before Capote depicts the murder scene the reader in a way can assume as Nancy Ewalt knocks on the Clutters front door, that they had already been murdered.
By doing all of these things he gives the reader a little build up of interest before they read the murder scene, which is described by Larry Hendricks. Capote depicts this murder scene after the reader is familiar with all the Clutter’s being dead. Capote includes in this scene many important details, which keep the reader wanting reasons and asking why. The most important thing, which Capote makes the reader notice in this section, is the jewelry which Mrs. Clutter still possesses as she is laying in her bed after being murdered. “Well, she was wearing some jewelry, two rings-which is one of the reasons why I’ve always discounted robbery as a motive” (63).
When the reader reads through this section they, along with the rest of the city at the time, believed that they could rule out robbery as the main motive for the murderers to commit such bad actions. This is the first “red herring” which is later corrected as both Perry and Dick admit that robbery was their main motive for committing the murders. As one looks at this they can agree that Capote setup this section to feel like your discovering the murder scene, and know just as little as the people of Holcomb did at this time.
Throughout the entire second section of the book titled “Persons Unknown” Capote keeps the reader feeling like the people in the area. They are confused, scared, and cannot understand why anyone would commit such an evil crime to such nice people. Even though the reader is familiar with who committed the crime they are asking for reasons and why anyone would do this. The most important part of this section which Capote writes, as he begins working both criminals’ backgrounds into his narrative. He does this in many ways beginning with describing there time spent in Mexico.
He follows this up with his brief summary of each criminal’s life up until the present day. The thing that makes these background summaries important and at the same time informative is that they show the reader some bad times throughout Dick and Perry’s lives, which shows the reader why they were capable of doing such a cruel action. As the novel gets deeper into the investigations Capote shows some of the stress and uneasiness that the town is going through. “Well, if he’s the wrong un, why the hell don’t you find the right un? I got a houseful of women won’t go to the bathroom alone” (150). This scene in the book that takes place at Hartman’s Café is a great example of how in depth Capote goes to give the reader great imagery of the type of stress the city was going through at the time.
After the first two sections of the book the reader finally gets some answers to some of the things they may have been wondering. Capote starts off the section titled “Answer” talking about Floyd Well’s, an ex-cellmate of Dick while he was serving time. This comes onto the reader just as it seemed to have come onto the people involved in the case, which was a very lucky lead. This is the reason why at the beginning when Dick and Perry seemed so familiar with directions to the Clutter household, because Floyd had helped Dick with directions and where things in the city were located. In this section is where the reader also gets the answer for the motive of the murders, which ironically was exactly what people believed could immediately have been ruled out.
This goes back to Capotes organization because he knew what the motive was when he wrote the novel, but he had to organize it in a way to show what the people at the time thought. Later on in this section Dick and Perry are arrested, and you get their confessions, which shows some faults in original assumptions to the murder scene. The most important confession is Perry’s, because he realizes Dick really did come clean so he gives every little detail of the murder’s from sitting in the car and almost backing out, all the way till they walked out of the Clutter house that very night.
One “red herring” the reader learns from Perry’s confession other then the motive being robbery is the order that the coroner projected that the victims were killed. The coroner projected that the order was Nancy, Mrs. Clutter, Kenyon, and Mr. Clutter. As Perry reveals in his confession the real order was Mr. Clutter, Kenyon, Nancy, and Mrs. Clutter. As the reader reads Perry’s confession there is almost a sense of relief, as it finally seems like they have all the details straightened out.
Capote sets up his novel for this very moment when all the details are explained and you get the correct story behind the murders. After Perry’s confession the reader gets a sense of finality because they feel they know all the details and everything is correct. This is where Capote presents the reader with a final “red herring”, when Perry refuses to sign his “Statement”, which gives proof of his confession. He refuses to sign, because he wants to correct the confession saying he killed all of the Clutter’s.
Perry’s original statement claimed that he killed Herb, and Kenyon, and Dick killed Nancy, and Bonnie. He also states his reason for changing his statement other then it actually being the truth. “According to him he was doing it out of consideration for Hickock’s parents-said he was sorry for Dick’s mother. Said, ‘She’s a real sweet person. It might be some comfort to her to know Dick never pulled the trigger” (255). At this point in the novel is where Capote’s masterpiece takes affect in the reader’s eyes. He found a way other then looking for the murderers the whole time to keep the reader interested and keep looking for reasons, and wondering why they would do it.
After reading this novel it is easy to say this isn’t just an ordinary novel. Capote shows true talent as he wrote In Cold Blood. In a way he makes you live the story, and you are discovering details as the people of Holcomb did. He wrote this novel truly for the reader’s enjoyment, by what you could call “Capote’s Order of Attack”. His order of writing accomplishes exactly what he wanted when writing this book and that is to keep the reader wanting reasons for everything.
