Transcript Document 7144517

“I was so different from everyone, so much more intelligent and
sensitive and perceptive. I was having fifty perceptions a minute
to everyone else’s five. I always felt that nobody was going to
understand me, going to understand what I felt about things. I
guess that’s why I started writing.”
-Truman Capote
Capote’s Life
Brief Biography
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Truman Streckfus Persons, born September 30, 1924, in New Orleans.
Grew up in small rural town of Monroeville, Alabama. Took on
stepfather’s name, Joe Capote. Began writing at age 8.
Closest childhood friend was Nelle Harper Lee, who later wrote To
Kill a Mockingbird, in which “Dell” is based on Truman. (In Cold
Blood is dedicated to Harper Lee.)
Dysfunctional Family: Father, small-time con man; Step-father,
imprisoned for embezzlement; Mother, committed suicide.
Died August 27, 1984, in Los Angeles
Quirks
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Only 5’3”, high-pitched squeaky voice
Paranoid of #13
Sleepwalker
Extraordinarily vain, collected portraits of himself
Kept bulldogs and ravens as pets
Knew early on that he was gay and never tried to hide it
Considered himself an excellent dancer and connoisseur of fine clothes
Capote’s Career
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Quit schooling at age 17. Moved to NYC.
“I was determined never to set a studious foot
inside a college classroom. I felt that either
one was or wasn’t a writer, and no combination of professors
could influence the outcome.”
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Worked 2 years as office boy at the The New Yorker Magazine.
Won O.Henry Memorial Award in 1946 for short story. (Later,
won 3 more.)
“I had to be successful, and I had to be successful early.”
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Other Voices, Other Rooms, 1948, hailed as remarkable
achievement for a 23 year old.
Traveled around Europe for many years. Short story collections
and nonfiction for Vogue, Mademoiselle, Esquire, and The New
Yorker. Profile of Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe.
Local Color, 1950; The Grass Harp, 1952; Beat the Devil, 1954
The Muses Are Heard,1956, chronicled tour of Soviet Union by
“Porgy and Bess” (beginnings of journalistic writing).
Breakfast At Tiffany’s, 1968, Holly Golightly meant to be
Marilyn Monroe, but played by Audrey Hepburn in film version.
In Cold Blood
“It seemed to me that journalism, reportage,
could be forced to yield a serious new art form:
the ‘nonfiction novel.’”
“I wanted to produce a journalistic novel, something on a large scale
that would have the credibility of fact, the immediacy of film, the
depth and freedom of prose, and the precision of poetry.”
Capote put his effort into several projects, even working for six
months on one idea, but none of them measured up to his concept of
the non-fiction novel.
“Then one morning in November, 1959, while flicking through The
New York Times, I encountered on a deep-inside page, this headline:
‘Wealthy Farmer, 3 of Family Slain’…It suddenly struck me that a
crime, the study of one such, might provide the broad scope I
needed to write the kind of book I wanted to write.”
Capote worked six years on In Cold Blood.
In Cold Blood: The Writing of It
Research
“Why not pack up and go to Kansas and see what happens? Of course it was rather frightening
thought—to arrive alone in a small, strange town, a town in the grip of an unsolved mass
murder.”
Capote arrived in Kansas with Harper Lee, as assistant. First, consulted Dr. James McClain,
president of Mr. Clutter’s alma mater, Kansas State Univ, who gave Capote letters of
introduction to Holcomb people. Lee helped break the ice, making friends with wives and
churchgoers. It took about a month to get people talking to Truman.
“I did months of comparative research on murder, murderers, the criminal mentality, and I
interviewed quite a number of murderers—solely to give me perspective on [Hickock and
Smith].”
Capote traveled to everywhere that Dick and Perry had gone while they were on the run to check
details against their memory, to ensure accuracy. He went to Mexico, to Miami, to every place
they slept, on every road they drove on.
Interviewing
Capote never used a tape recorder nor pen—trained himself to memorize conversations. He
listened, then rushed away from an interview to write down everything he had been told.
“Even note-taking artificializes the atmosphere of an interview, or a scene-in-progress; it
interferes with the communication between author and subject.”
Writing
“I worked for a year on the notes before I ever wrote one line. When I wrote the first word, I had
done the entire book in outline, down to the finest detail.”
In Cold Blood: The Writing of It
Style
Capote wrote sections: (1) verbatim transriptions from an interview, eg. in part 1, comments by
Larry Hendricks; (2) dramatic scenes recreated from bitparts of various interviews. eg. in Part 1,
scene between Mother Truitt and Mrs. Clare; (3) direct observations by himself, eg. in Part 4,
the trial and the executions.
Capote did not include himself in the story.
“My feeling is that for the nonfiction-novel form to be entirely successful, the author should not
appear in the work…I think the single most difficult thing in my book, technically, was to
write it without ever appearing myself, and yet, at the same time, create total credibility.”
Author’s Own Point of View
During his research, Capote found that there were many opinions as to WHY Perry (trigger puller)
killed the Clutters. Ultimately, he believed what the killer said himself: “I didn’t have anything
against them, and they never did anything wrong to me—the way other people have all my life.
Maybe they’re just the ones who had to pay for it.”
“[Smith’s explanation] happens to be the one I believe is the right one,…I could have added a lot
of other opinions. But that would have confused the issue, and indeed the book. I had to
make up my mind and move toward that one view, always.”
Relationship with Interviewees
Capote did show sections of the book-in-progress to Dick and Perry. But generally didn’t believe in
doing it. Capote did change his text for one of the complainers.
“It’s a mistake because it’s almost impossible to write about anybody objectively and have that
person really like it.”
In Cold Blood: The Writing of It
Skepticism
How can Capote reconstruct the conversation of a dead girl without fictionalizing?
“It’s a silly question. Each time Nancy appears in the narrative, there are witnesses to what she
is saying and doing…All of it is reconstructed from the evidence of witnesses which is
implicit in the title of the first section of the book ‘The Last to See Them Alive’”
Relationship with Dick and Perry
Capote was with Dick and Perry the hour before they were executed. Later, he received a 100-page
letter from Perry.
“It was a rambling letter, often intensely personal, often setting forth his various
philosophies…The last line is from Thoreau: ‘And suddenly I realize life is the father and
death is the mother.’”
Perry left all his belongings to Capote.
“It was miserably little, his books, written in and annotated…his paintings and drawings. I
simply couldn’t bear to look at it for a long time.”
Capote on the Nonfiction Novel
Why are you interested in journalism?
“Because few first-class creative writers have ever bothered with journalism. Its hackwork,
something to do when the creative spirit is lacking, to make some quick money. Writers say
in effect: why should we trouble with factual writing when we’re able to invent our own
stories, contrive our own characters, and our own themes?”
Were others supportive of your idea?
“They felt that what I proposed, a narrative form that employed all the techniques of fictional art
but was nevertheless immaculately factual, was little more than a literary solution for a
fatigued novelist suffering from “failure of imagination.””
What is needed to write nonfiction novels well?
“An ability to transcribe verbatim long conversations, and to do so without taking notes, or using
tape-recorders…A 20/20 eye for visual detail—in this sense, it is quite true that one must be a
“literary photographer.” But above all, you must be able to empathize with personalities
outside your usual imaginative range, mentalities unlike your own, kinds of people you
would never have written about.”
What do you think of Hersey’s “Hiroshima” or Lewis’ “Children of Sanchez”?
“The Lewis book is a documentary, a job of editing fro m tapes, and however skillful and moving,
it is not creative writing. ‘Hiroshima’ is creative—in the sense that Hersey isn’t taking
something off a tape recorder and editing it—but it still hasn’t got anything to do with what
I’m talking about. ‘Hiroshima’ is a strict classical journalistic piece.”
“I’m talking about reporting that is as interesting as fiction, and done as artistically.”
In Cold Blood: The Story
Divided into four parts, total of 86 scenes, constantly
alternating viewpoint.
“…resembles screenplay, in that Capote avoids chapter headings and numbered
sections; all the action unfolds in a fluid succession of scenes. The pace is
rapid, the fundamental technique is simple.” (Murray)
Part 1: THE VICTIMS - THE KILLERS
The Clutters, friends, Holcomb VS Dick Hickock and Perry Smith
Part 2: THE HUNTED - THE HUNTER
Dick and Perry on the run VS Alvin Dewey’s investigation
Part 3: THE HUNTED – THE HUNTER - HUNT IS OVER
Dick and Perry on the run VS Alvin Dewey’s investigation
Part 4: TRIGGER PULLER – MASTER PLANNER – THE EXECUTION
Dick VS Perry
Part 1: The Last to see Them Alive
What is it about?
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Welcome to the wonderful world of the Clutters and beautiful Kansas in Autumn 1959.
Please, meet “man’s-man” Mr. Clutter (3), fragile Mrs. Clutter (23), the “town darling”
Nancy Clutter (16), and “sensitive” Kenyon Clutter (38).
And, meet tattooed, disfigured, cigarette-smoking ex-cons, Dick Hickock and Perry
Smith, who IF they were “scrubbed, combed” would’ve struck you as “two dudes setting
off on a double date” (30).
What does it accomplish?
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Reader feels just how perfectly “normal” and “safe” the Clutters lives were—Mr. Clutter
on his land, the family preparing for a big reunion over Thanksgiving and the wedding of
second daughter, Nancy baking pies, Kenyon working with wood to build a chest for his
sister—Reader can identify with the victims. I KNOW HIM, HER. Also, recognizes that
if it can happen to the Clutters, it could happen to anyone—this is a real tragedy.
Reader begins to wonder WHO IS THIS Dick and Perry? They seem normal (guitarplaying, singing Christian songs, visiting parents), but why do they have such evil
tattoos, why are they buying rubber gloves and rope? Why are they driving towards the
idllyic town of Holcomb?
Part 1: The Last to see Them Alive
The text
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“After drinking the glass of milk and putting on a fleece-lined cap, Mr. Clutter carried his
apple with him when he went outdoors to examine the morning. It was ideal apple-eating
weather; the whitest sunlight descended from the purest sky, and an easterly wind rustled,
without ripping loose, the last of the leaves on the Chinese elms.” (8)
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“Where [Nancy] found the time, and still managed to ‘practically run that big house’ and
be a straight-A student, the president of her class, a leader in the 4-H (Head, Heart,
Hands, Health) programme and the Youth Methodists League, a skilled rider, an excellent
musician (piano, clarinet), an annual winner at the county fair (pastry, preserves,
needlework, flower arrangement)—how a girl not yet seventeen could haul such a
wagon-load, and do so without ‘brag,’ with, rather, merely a radiant jauntiness, was an
enigma the community pondered, and solved by saying, ‘She’s got character. Gets it
from her old man.’” (16) Details, details, details.
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Dick’s head “halved like an apple, then put together a fraction off center,” with his “left eye
being truly serpentine, with a venemous, sickly-blue squint that, although it was involuntarily
acquired, seemed nevertheless to warn of bitter sediment at the bottom of his nature.” (29)
Suggestive of the Fall of Man from God’s grace—the apple and the serpent
The road to the Clutter home
The village of Holcomb stands on the
high wheat plains of western Kansas, a
lonesome area that other Kansans call
“out there.”
Clutter Family Home (as it stands today)
Part 1: The Last to see Them Alive
The text
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Dick’s tattoos: “The tattooed face of a cat, blue and grinning, covered his right hand; on
one shoulder a blue rose blossomed. More markings, self-designed and self-executed,
ornamented his arms and torso.” (29) VS. Perry’s tattoos: “While he had fewer
tattoos than his companion, they were more elaborate—not the self-inflicted work of an
amateur but epics of the art contrived by Honolulu and Yokohama masters.” (30) Begins
to show the difference between these two—Dick at the core is evil, while Perry strives
for good, but fails.
“Dictionary-buff” Perry corrects Dick’s crude English. (20,21)
Foreshadowing. Mrs. Clutter has “on her bedside table—only a Bible. A bookmark lay
between its pages, a still piece of watered silk upon which an admonition had been
embroidered; ‘Take ye heed, watch and pray: for he know not when the time is.’” (28)
Mrs. Clutter is killed while in her bed: “…on her bed, that’s where we found Mrs.
Clutter. She’d been tied, too. But differently—with her hands in front of her, so that she
looked as though she were praying—and in one had, she was holding, gripping, a
handkerchief…she’d been shot point-blank in the side of the head…Her eyes were wide
open. Wide open.” (61)
Reader discovers bodies through eyes of English teacher, Larry Hendricks. (59-62)
Part 2: Persons Unknown
What is it about?
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Dick and Perry flee from the scene. And what do they do? They eat and rest. Dick goes
home to his parents. Then, they hit the road to Alcapulco, Mexico.
Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Detective Alvin Dewey, tries to put the pieces together.
The good people of Holcomb in shock. Fearful, paranoid. Clutter Funeral.
What does it accomplish?
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Reader now knows what Dick and Perry are—they’re the murderers. But you still don’t
know EXACTLY WHAT happened and WHY. Just as confused and baffled as Dewey.
Reader gets better sense for WHO is Dick and Perry. Dick and Perry don’t get along.
Letter from Perry’s dad to the Kansas State Parole Board--Perry’s pathetic and tragic
childhood. Mother dead, sister and brother committed suicide, Dad is a deadbeat.
The text
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At the funeral, Nancy is a wearing a red dress. Sue Kidwell recalls, “It was her own
design, and she sewed it herself. I remember how excited she was the first time she wore
it. At a party. All I could see was Nancy’s red velvet. And Nancy in it. Dancing.”
Scene END. (92)
Dewey’s wife has a nightmare vision of Mrs. Clutter: “She was saying, ‘To be murdered.
To be murdered. No. No. There’s nothing worse. Nothing worse than that. Nothing.’”
(150). Next scene: Perry is playing his harmonica and Dick and Perry are singing,
“Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!” while hitchhiking through the Mojave Desert. (151)
Part 3: Answer
What is it about?
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There’s a break in the investigation. A witness—Floyd Wells, cellmate with Dick.
Dewey now hot on the trail of Dick and Perry. Interviews Dick’s parents, Perry’s sister.
Dick and Perry run out of money, leave Mexico, back in Kansas. Escapes to Miami.
Christmas time. Nancy’s 17th Birthday. Dick and Perry arrested in Las Vegas.
Confessions.
What does it accomplish?
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Reader is rooting for Dewey. He’s working so hard, you just keep your fingers crossed.
Learn along with the investigators, put clues together. Learn more about Dick and
Perry’s families.
Reader gets nervous that Dick and Perry might kill again, or kill each other.
The text
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Full text of how the murders happened. Two different versions from Dick and Perry.
What really happened?
Last scene: Dick and Perry brought back in Kansas. Describes the scene: “Among
Garden City’s animals are two grey tomcats who are always together—thin, dirty strays
with strange and clever habits” who cruise the streets looking for dead birds to eat. At
the end of the scene, everybody’s gone home, it starts to snow, and the cats are once
again alone. Grey cats = Dick and Perry. Metaphor. (241)
•Main detective
in the Clutter
investigation
•Acquaintance
of Herb Clutter
Part 4: The Corner
What is it about?
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Dick and Perry are in jail during the trial. Perry befriends a squirrel. Both found guilty,
sentenced to death. Life on death row. Fight for retrial—May 30, 1960; Oct 25, 1962;
Aug 8, 1963; Feb 18, 1965; Apr 14, 1965 executed.
New people in Dick and Perry’s lives, friendly jailors, strict judge, angry jurors, weak
defence attorney. Capote quotes from Perry’s diary. On Death row, story of cellmates.
Other killers, more gruesome than Dick and Perry.
Perry goes on hunger strike to kill himself. Dick starts writing Senators to save himself.
What does it accomplish?
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The killers are caught and now justice has to be done. But the reader becomes conflicted
when they realize that: (1) Dick is the evil one but he’s a coward and couldn’t kill anyone
(although he likes to talk about doing it), and (2) Perry is the one to feel sorry for given
he’s had such a horrible life, but he’s the one who cut Mr. Clutter’s throat and shot the
rest of the family.
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Perry gets an unusual visitor and friend, Donald Cullivan from Boston. Nobody could
understand “why a staid Catholic, a successful engineer [from] Harvard, a husband and the
father of three children, should choose to befriend an uneducated, homicidal half-breed whom
he knew but slightly and had not seen for nine years.” Don speaks in Perry’s defence as a
character witness. Later, Perry says to Don, “Joe always liked me. Do you, Don?” “Yes, I
like you.” (283) If Don likes Perry, maybe he is a likable guy afterall?
Part 4: The Corner
The text
“The hanging scene is one of the finest of its kind, right up there with Melville’s Billy Budd
and the hanging of Popeye in Faulkner’s Sanctuary.” (George)
• Dick’s execution: “The hangman coughed impatiently lifted his cowboy hat and settled
it again, a gesture somehow reminiscent of a turkey buzzard huffing, then smoothing its
neck feathers—and Hickock, nudged by an attendant, mounted the scaffold steps.” (331)
• Perry’s execution: “Dewey shut his eyes; he kept them shut until he heard the thud-snap
that announces a rope-broken neck.” Dewey didn’t care for Dick, but with Perry he had a
different response, “for Perry possessed a quality, the aura of an exiled animal, a creature
walking wounded, that the detective could not disregard. He remembered his first
meeting with Perry in the interrogation room…the dwarfish boy-man seated in the metal
chair, his small booted feet not quite brushing the floor. And when Dewey now opened
his eyes, that is what he saw: the same childish feet, tilted, dangling.” (333).
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THE LAST SCENE: “One afternoon, a month when the fields blaze with the green-gold
fire of half-grown wheat,” Dewey bumps into Sue Kidwell at the graveyard, while he’s
visiting his father’s grave and she to her friend Nancy Clutter: “’And nice to have seen
you, Sue. Good luck,’ he called after her as she disappeared down the path, a pretty girl
in a hurry, her smooth hair swinging, shining—just such a young woman as Nancy might
have been. Then, starting home, he walked towards the trees, and under them, leaving
behind him the big sky, the whisper of wind voices in the wind-bent wheat.” (335)
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The dismantled American Dream
loss of innocence
evil as an ordinary part of the human spirit
nature vs. nurture
Psychiatry
fate
death penalty
sexual identity and relationships
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Did Capote take a stand on the death penalty? Why could he
not finish the book until after the executions? Does In Cold
Blood make an argument either side?
* The tone of the book reveals the author's attitude toward his
subject matter. Capote intended In Cold Blood to be both
objective (non-judgmental) and sympathetic. Is this
possible? Did he achieve it?
* Just before he is hanged, Perry finally apologizes for the
crime; however, critical accounts suggest that Capote
embellished this part of the novel for dramatic effect, and that
the real Perry said nothing of the sort. What do you make of
this apology? Discuss why Capote might have invented this
segment. Is it faithful to the representation of Perry that the
book has crafted up to this point? Do you think it helps to
clarify his character, or make him more ambiguous?
In Cold Blood: The Aftermath
Publication
Capote earned up to $2million through magazine,
book, and film rights.
In Fall 1965, The New Yorker printed the entire
135,000 word story in four installments. Random
House published it in Jan 1966. Chosen by Bookof-the-month Club as its Feb 1996 selection. 196566, sold paperback rights, movie rights (to
Columbia Pictures) and 15 foreign publishers
rights.
The Party of the Century
Capote gave a black-and-white masked ball” at the
Plaza Hotel for his “closest 500 friends”. It was
billed the greatest party there ever was.
“It was the talk of New York. The elevator
operators, the cab drivers, the doormen, as soon as
they saw you with a mask or headdress, they said,
"Going to Truman's ball, huh?“”
In Cold Blood: The Legacy
Conversation between Capote and Perry Smith
Smith:
Why are you writing this book? What is it supposed to mean? I
don’t understand why you’re doing it.
Capote: It doesn’t have anything to do with changing the readers’ opinion
about anything, nor do I have any moral reasons. I have a strictly
aesthetic theory about creating a book which could result in a work
of art.
Smith: A work of art, a work of art? (Smith laughs.)
Capote: That’s really the truth.
Smith: What an irony, what an irony.
Capote: What do you mean?
Smith: “That’s all I ever wanted in my whole life. And now, what’s
happened? An incredible situation where I kill four people, and
you’re going to produce a work of art.”
Interview with George Plimpton, “The Story Behind a Nonfiction Novel,” The New York Times,
January 16, 1966.
George, Garrett. (1996). “Then and Now: In Cold Blood Revisited.” Virginia Quarterly Review.
Summer 1996, Vol,72, Iss,3.
Murray, Edward. (1973). “In Cold Blood: The Filmic Novel and the Problem of Adaptation.” Literature
Film Quarterly. Spring 1973, Vol.1,Iss.2, pp.132-138.