In In Cold Blood, a terrible murder has just occoured. The brutality is shown not only in the means of of the murders, but in the text. What I mean by this, is that Capote shows the true harshness in the story by describing what is lost. By doing this, the reader begins to feel sorry for the vicitims and sorry for those who the death affects. For intance, the second chapter/setion starts off with a memory, a tradition between four friends who go pheasant hunting this time of year, every year. By putting this memory in the story, the reader gets a sence for what is lost. “Today this quartet of old hunting companions had once again gathered to make the familiar journey, but in unfamiliar spirt, and armed with odd, non-sportive equipment” (77). By adding in this scene, the reader begins to feel sorry for the clutter family, in addition to their pheasant hunting friends. This may also be a form of double vision. AT first glance, it may seen that the friends are out for another enjoyable hunting experience, however further reading reveals something completely different. Instead of giong hunting and having fun, they are off to the Clutter’s house to clean. The way in which Capote adds this scene, adds to the effect of the morning.

With the murders of the Clutter family, Holcomb is transformed from a peaceful, idyllic town, to a place of suspicion and overwhelming fear. A town of a mere 270 people, Holcomb is located on the high western plains of Kansas. It is described by Capote as having blue skies, desert-clear air and views that are awesomely extensive (3). The residents are hard working people, most of them being farm ranchers. They are a friendly, close knit community where people seldom lock their doors. The people are content with a simple life of working, hunting, watching television, attending school socials, choir practice and meetings of the 4-H Club (5). With his initial detailed description of Holcomb, Capote succeeds in creating an image of an all American town where people are happy and feel safe in their community. The peaceful atmosphere of Holcomb is shattered with the slaughter of the Clutters. Panic and terror now reign supreme in Holcomb. Neighbors who had been friends for years now look at each other suspiciously. People can not sleep at night as they fear the killer is lurking among them. Whole families are described as staying up all night, fully dressed in brightly lit rooms, fearful that they could be the next victims (88). Locks and bolts are the fastest selling item in the hardware store as people try to protect themselves. Several families leave Holcomb. They are too fearful to live in a town where four gruesome murders have occurred. As one man puts it who is leaving with his family, “How a body can’t sleep. My wife can’t sleep, and she won’t allow me. ..we’re movin’ on…Maybe then I’ll get some rest” (115-116). Capote shows how quickly paranoia can set in. Residents who have known each other a lifetime, no longer trust one another. In fact, most of the residents believe that the murders were probably committed by one of their own, and not an outsider. Everyone in town agrees with Arthur Clutter, a brother of the deceased, when he said of the murders, “…I’ll wager whoever did it was someone within ten miles of where we now stand” (88). Fear is seen as an emotion that can overtake everything. It even erodes the bedrock of Holcomb- a faith and belief in each other. The reader wonders if Holcomb will ever recover from the tragedy that occurred there and return to the peaceful, trusting town that it once was.

In this post, there are two specific quotes I would like to address. The first one comes from page 86. The police and investigators are trying to piece together what has happened and analyzing "clues". One of the investigators brings up the idea that this crime was a murder done to steal the Clutters' money. The interesting part about this quote is that Capote writes, " 'Unless it was robbery,' said Nye, though robbery as the motive had been much discussed and then more or less dismissed. The arguments against it were good, the strongest being that Mr. Clutter's aversion to cash was a county legend; he had no safe and never carried large sums of money". This quote is so important because it proves that the murderer was most likely not from the town. This is because, as Capote has just stated, most everybody in the town knew that Mr. Clutter did not keep cash or have a safe. If the murderer was somebody in the town, they would have to be one of the very few who did not know this fact or they would have to choose to commit the murders while knowning this fact, the latter of these theories being unlikely. Instead of the investigators using this "clue" to hint that maybe the felan is not from their town, they take this information and infer from it that robbery was not the motive of the murders. The investigators recognized that this fact could give off important information about the murderers, but they take it in the wrong context.

The next quote that I would like to talk about is on page 89. This scene is when Dick and Perry go out to eat. They are talking about the murder, and the reader can see the effects of their actions on both Dick and Perry. Perry is very shook up. The reader can tell he is uncomfortable, and there is something troubling him about the murder. This is proven when Perry states, "Anyway, I don't believe it. Neither do you. Own up, Dick. Be honest. You don't believe this no-clue stuff?" I am unsure of whether this quote was meant to have this meaning, but when I read the quote I had this notion that maybe Perry subconciously wanted there to be clues left behind. Or maybe he is showing how uncomfortable he feels with the whole situation by looking for faults. For some reason, this quote hit me, as if it has a meaning behind it.

While reading Part Two of Capote's In Cold Blood, it seemed as if more sympathy went towards Perry and Dick, rather than the Clutters. Different from part one, we did not learn as much about the Clutter family as it was more focused on the pasts of the two murderers. This allowed the reader to better understand the nature of the two men. Against what might have been popular belief, they were not monsters. Capote illustrated them as two struggling men - and Perry in-particular, a man who had battled trauma in his past. On one occasion, the reader sympathizes with Dick; whom we discover to be a father with a family. Capote writes, "There were those Dick claimed to love: three sons, a mother, a father, a brother-- persons he hadn't dared confide his plans to, to bid goodbye, though he never expected to see them again--not in this life" (106). Dick was not a heartless man, he had people whom he loved and these people, he had never gotten to give a final word to. Not only do we begin to understand Dick better, but it makes us feel sympathy for the situation he is in. Perry's past, one full of instability and sadness, causes the reader to have an extreme amount of empathy towards him. His mother whom he lived with, abusive and incompetent, ended up putting Perry in a Catholic orphanage at a young age. He describes his experience, "The one where the Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed" (132). Eventually, he was kicked out of the orphanage and put into a children's shelter operated by the Salvation Army. Perry believes this was much worse, as he says, "They hated me, too. For wetting the bed. And for being half Indian... what she used to do, she'd fill a tub with ice cold water, put me in it, and hold me under till I was blue. Nearly drowned" (132). Traumatic situations in the past, especially at a young age, tend to take a large toll physiologically on the child. The reader sympathizes with the fact Perry had an extremely rough time, and it begins to explain his state of mind. He was misunderstood, abused, and mistreated. Happiness was not a feeling he experienced often; instead he was tormented by fear and pain. Because readers learn more about the lifestyles of the "bad guys", they may not be as bad as they thought they were initially. Feelings of anger from the reader are replaced with those of sympathy.

Liam Green

We discussed in class how in Part II of the book, we can begin to see clearly the aftermath and the town’s reaction to the murder of one of Holcomb’s most beloved family, the Clutter family.  The town of Holcomb is filled with chaos following the killings of the Clutter’s as the community and out of town reporters search for the answers to questions such as ‘Why the Clutter’s?’ and ‘How could and did this happen?’.  Throughout Part II, Unknown Persons, we can see how the people close to the Clutter’s have reacted and see what they have observed in how the town has reacted.  One such person is Herb Clutter’s closest neighbor, Alfred Stoecklein, who on page 78 is heard saying, “He wished ‘folks would stop yappin’ and try to understand’… He [the killer/killers] must’ve knowed we wouldn’t hear. Else he wouldn’t have took the chance… Why, he’d be crazy.  Course, you might say he must be crazy anyhow,”  He then goes on, on page 79 to explain that he, “and the Missis, [have] slept our last night on this place.  We’re movin’ to a house alongside the highway.”  We also get to hear Edna Richardson, the sheriff’s secretary’s reaction on page 81 when she says, “this Clutter thing came along,’ bringing with it ‘all these out-of-towners, all this newspaper fuss.”  On both page 85 and 88 the idea is brought up that out of all the people in Holcomb, why would it happen to the Clutters, seemingly the least likely target.  On page 85 Capote informs us that all officer Nye learned from his interviews was that, “Of all the people in the world, the Clutters were the least likely to be murdered.” On 88, a hardware store proprietor from Garden City tells us, “Around here, locks and bolts are the fastest going item.”  This is explained later on the page by a schoolteacher who shares with us her opinion that, “Feeling wouldn’t run half so high if this had happened to anyone except the clutters.”  These observations by the people of Holcomb show us that the community has been nothing less than shaken and rattled by the unanswered deaths of the Clutters.

The murder has ended the lives of four people, but has also changed the lives of everyone in the town of Holcomb. Each person is affected physiologically. Before the event occurs, Holcomb was an average, quiet, and small town. Everyone was very close to each other, and trust was an huge aspect of the relationships formed in Holcomb. As written by Capote, "Another reason, the simplest, the ugliest, was that this peaceful congregation of neighbors and old friends had suddenly to endure the unique experience of distrusting each other; understandably, they believed the murderer was among themselves..." (88). The community was not used to this feeling of insecurity among each other. For example, after the tragic incident, Mrs Clare describes the neighbors as, "All the neighbors are rattlesnakes. Varmints looking for a chance to slam the door in your face. It's the same the whole world over. You know that" (69). Her opinion, as well as others in the Holcomb society, has changed regarding the neighbors. Now, they are nothing but traitors. No one knows when they will turn their back on you. A second occasion occurs when Dewey's wife calls and includes information regarding the changing of the house locks. After the phone call ends, a collegue of his asks a question, saying, "What's wrong? Marie scared?" Dewey replies with, "Hell yes. Her and everyone else" (87). Fear grips the town of Holcomb, but it is not fear of a foreign source, it is fear of their neighbors - the people who they used to trust the most. A third example of this is when two local families decide to leave the state after the previous events. The father of one describes their reasoning to leave, "How a body can't sleep. My life can't sleep, and she won't allow me" (115). Everyone lays awake at night in fear that they will have the same fate as the Clutters. By leaving Holcomb, they feel as if they are leaving the murderer/s as well.

In the 2nd section of the book, the mood becomes very hostile. When everyone fines out about the murder everyone is parranoid because nobody knows exactly who did it. They suspect every in site making them scared to even go outside. I beleive Capote creates this mood both as a storyteller and a reporter. Although these events were most likely apparent in the actual murder his storyteller voice creates an even more hostile situation to have a greater effect on the reader. By using this tactic it pulls in the reader farther into the story. When everyone is parranoyed you almost become parranoid yourself from reading it. Everyone is also on edge thinking about who the killer could be because this kind of thing never happened in Holcomb. Everyone panicked because they had never been in that situation before so they were constantley on the lookout and calling Dewey to report minor suspicions. Capote shows this to almost create a mystery story. Since you already know the answer however, it makes it very much like a non fiction report at the same time.