An Insight into Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood’

By Alex Morgan

It is difficult to comprehend that Truman Capote wrote both the light-hearted novel ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ and the chilling ‘In Cold Blood’. ‘In Cold Blood’ is neither fiction nor a novel, but rather falls into the oxymoronic genre of a ‘non-fiction novel’. In other words, it presents actual events of crime, inter-woven with fictional conversations and literary motifs. However, reading the book gives one more than just a semi-fictitious account of the events that took place. It gives one the ability to feel empathy for the facilitators of a gruesome crime, and plays with one’s psychology, producing what appears to be a terrifying prospect. In order to show how absurd this really is, I will attempt to explain the events that ‘In Cold Blood’ modelled itself on.

On a quiet November morning four members of the Clutter family, who were members of a small Kansas farming community, were all graphically murdered. All of them innocent. Not a single member with a criminal record. So who was the murderer? Well, there were two – Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, partners in crime, ages 31 and ex-convicts. It seems unfathomable to us how a pair of men can carry out such a terrible crime. However, what is even stranger is the fact that the main motive for these murders, highlighted in ‘In Cold Blood’, was money; the lives of the Clutter family came to just over a mere 50 dollars.

Throughout the novel, we expectedly feel pathos for the Clutter family. Capote particularly focuses Nancy Clutter’s story as a loveable, intelligent 16-year-old girl. The lives of her friends and love interests are followed into adulthood, portraying the dire effect Nancy’s murder had on them. Thus, as the reader we would expect this to make our hatred for the killers intensify. However, when researching for ‘In Cold Blood’, Capote also examined the lives of Perry Smith and Richard Hickock in great depth, and we learn that despite their heavily inhumane crime, these men are still frighteningly human themselves. We begin to understand the difficult, dysfunctional family situations both came from, each having a childhood that is far from ideal. And so our feelings towards the murderers remain ambivalent, and we enter into somewhat of a paradox, toying between feeling hatred and empathy.

Usually when we feel emotions towards characters in novels that we did not expect, or loathe ourselves for feeling, relief can be found in the fact that it is merely a work of fiction. The consequences are contained withing the realms of the pages, and never escape into the outside world. With ‘In Cold Blood’, it is a very different case. The relief we look for when reading it cannot be found. As much as we would like to believe that the events were entirely the products of Capote’s imagination, we are always reminded that these were real events. The Clutter family were real people whose lives were tragically cut short, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock were real men who face the death row for their iniquitous crime.

I believe that everyone should have an insight into the events detailed in ‘In Cold Blood’. However, it must be read with caution. Although it is a novel, it must always be remembered that the events are not fiction, regardless of how terrifying this prospect may be.