A Biased Opinion

When doing research for the novel we learned that Capote has a special relationship with Perry, some even rumored that it was a romantic one. In Part 2 of Person’s Unknown, it entirely revolves around Perry’s background. Based on the information that we’re given, it makes Perry seem like an innocent person who just lost his way due to circumstances beyond his control. These circumstances that Capote talks about are the divorce that Perry’s parents went through, but lots of kids go through their parents getting divorced and they don’t end up committing murder, so this is really no excuse. He also includes the letter that Perry’s dad wrote about him that glorifies Perry as a normal person. However, this letter cannot be taken too seriously considering it was written to the jail as a plea to get Perry on early parole.

The letter is introduced as Perry is sorting through his boxes of belongings when he and Dick are on the move and he has to decide what to keep. What’s interesting about this is that as someone who is constantly traveling and on the run, you would think that he would pack like that. Instead he carries old letters and dictionaries, and I think Capote includes this is the text because he wants to show that Perry is more than just a murderer, but someone with a conscious who thinks about other things. People claim that Capote made Perry the more guilt-ridden of the two, and tried to humanize him more. Incorporating this information helped him to do that. However, I don’t buy it. To me, a killer is a killer, and I don’t have any sympathy no matter how much information Capote wants to include about him. It’s also contradicted by the fact that he doesn't include anything about Dick. I feel like if he wants to humanize one, he should do it for the other. He’s too biased in this sense. He may do this later, but as of now he has only done so for Perry.

You may think I’m heartless because I don’t have any sympathy for Perry, but I believe that people have control over their actions, unless deemed mentally unstable. From the information that Capote has included, especially Perry’s guilty thoughts after the murder, he was in complete control of his actions; his only mistake was following Dick. Capote’s presentation is biased because of his investment in the murder and his relationship with Perry, so I feel I can’t really trust the information he includes. I’m interested to see how he presents the rest of the murder, and the people in it.

The Itty Bitty... Murderer?

Welp. I caught myself having strange feelings toward Perry. No, it's not what you're thinking. I was sympathetic toward him. I know. What? This guy is the murderer!

Let me explain. We are again brought back into the lives of Dick and Perry. The men plan on heading back into the states when they can't find work that pays well. Because they are travelling, and this time without a car, Perry is basically forced to sort through the box of belongings that he kept in the back of his truck. They can only carry one suitcase and photographs and maps do not help to make the load lighter.

Perry sorts through his memorabilia and he comes across a piece his father had written about Perry himself. It goes back into his childhood where we see him as a boy who struggled in an unofficial custody battle between his parents. Because of this he moved around a lot and he was picked on in school for being a "new kid".

I could just imagine short, stocky little Perry getting picked on a beaten up by the older kids on the playground and I felt so bad. I wanted to be there defending Perry. I actually stopped for second as I was reading. I couldn't believe that I actually felt bad for him. A murderer.

It's actually pretty cool that Capote portrayed Perry in this manner. Throughout this whole book I seemed to forget that both Dick and Perry were actual people underneath the hard-boiled, murderous exterior. Since we still have no idea what the motive for the Clutter family murder was, it's really hard to comprehend and formulate a third-person type of perspective about these two men's characters. All we know is that they have committed murders, have been in prison and care very little about what crosses their path.

We can at least begin to see the inner workings of Perry's family which include the struggle and the animosity between him and his sister Barbara and the fondness he shows toward his dad.

There may not be a motive yet, (but hopefully more information will be revealed in the section titled "Answer") but we at least have a better understanding as to what has shaped Perry and his past.

I'm curious if the reader is going to get this kind of perspective with Dick as well. So far there hasn't been much of a focus on the inner-workings of Dick's character, but I wonder what Dick's position in this murder has been. I wanna know his past and I want to know what makes him tick.

Basically, I wanna know the motive. Right now. I will probably rant about that for every blog post I have to make until it happens and I'm sorry, but I just wanna know. I need to understand these characters.

The Investigation Continues...

This was supposed to be posted yesterday but I accidentally saved it to my drafts instead, so here it is now. Whoops. In the next section of the novel, Person’s unknown, Capote continues to switch between the happening in the town and the adventures of Dick and Perry. He aligns it so that the investigation of Holcomb is happening while there is an almost investigation of Perry. Perry is feeling guilty about the crime and can hardly eat, while Dick goes out of his way to hit stray dogs on the road and is continuing on in his daily life. We find out that Perry lied about murdering a black man, as does Dick. We are slowly learning that Perry never really felt comfortable about the whole thing, and really only did it to impress Dick. In doing so, Capote presents him as the follower and is guilt-ridden, reflecting their rumored relationship.

                While this “investigation” is happening between the two murderers, the investigation in Holcomb is at full force, Dewey, the lead investigator, receives calls day and night from the citizens of the town hoping to be a part of the capture of the murderer. He didn't have a lot of evidence to go off of aside from a bloody footprint, and his lead suspect was cleared due to a polygraph test. The "tips" that he gets from the people don't lead anywhere because they care more about finding any person who did it, than the actual culprit.

It's really interesting to read about people who have never experienced something like this before, and to see their reaction to the crime. They are paranoid and scared, yet at the same time they love having something actually happen in their small town, and become obsessed with the murders. They are willing to watch one of their friends be framed for it and don’t think about the consequences of accusing an innocent man, just as long as they can blame someone for it. Also, Dewey believes the murderers to be friends of the Clutter’s because he thinks they knew the layout of the house. As readers, we know this to be false because they were random victims of Dick and Perry, but the fact that Dewey came to this conclusion makes one wonder how Dick and Perry made it look like this.

Dewey’s involvement in the crime resembles Capote's in a way because he becomes almost obsessed, to the point that his wife is getting annoyed with all of the phone calls and papers strewn about the house. Capote, too, was very much involved with the murder and it took six years of his life. Whether this was really the case, or if Capote purposely exaggerated Dewey’s character to put himself in the story is unknown, but there is definitely a correlation between the too. It will be interesting to see how the witch-hunt continues within the town, and how Dewey continues with his investigation.

Nobody is Safe

So after a long night of revising my review portfolio, changing my "How did I get here" paper,and  reading really long articles about murdered playmates, I decided to give up and read "In Cold Blood." That, my friends, is procrastination at its finest. I am finding it difficult to put this book down because of the suspense Capote draws you in with but, after reading for about an hour, my current fascination, "Breaking Amish" came on. So me being the responsible student that I am put all homework away and started watching reality television.

Aside from that, "In Cold Blood" is gettin' juicy. It's hard to actually write about this book in sections because it really doesn't have any chapters, so bear with me. As of right now, at this very moment, I am reading about the hunt for the killers. Like the "Death of a Playmate" article, "In Cold Blood" is reading like a mystery. Although we know that Perry and Dick are the killers, Capote is trailing us along like we are part of the community unbeknownst to who actually did it. Because of this, both the reader, and the townspeople acquire a sense of paranoia accompanied with fear that murderers could be walking amongst them.

Like I said in my last post, the small town dynamic is a huge recurring motif. This idea presents itself again in the most recent pages of my reading. Seemingly every FBI agent and police officer are covering the investigation of the Clutter's. When they believe to have a suspect, townspeople rejoice in the idea that the killer is found. However, when said suspect is cleared, officers immediately start searching for new suspects. Rather than completing a thorough investigation, citizens of Holcomb and investigators would rather declare a murderer than actually finding out who it really was. Everybody living in town is scared shitless of the idea of a murder occurring in their small town, therefore declaring somebody the criminal (even if its not true) provides them with a sense of security.

Not sure if anybody has mentioned the fact that Capote is switching from the town of Holcomb and their story, to Perry and Dick while on the run. I like the fact that although both stories are separated by great distance, he is still able to complete the story on both ends. Currently Dick and Perry are somewhere in Mexico I think. What's interesting is the dynamic between the two. Perry confesses that he was surprised that he had actually been able to go through with the crime. In my opinion, this is the first sense of guilt or fear we sense from the murderers. As many of the posts on here have said before, Capote garnered a relationship with both the criminals during the interview process. This type of guilt/fear presented might be Capote attempting to make the two perhaps more relatable. He wants us to see these two in the same light he did. 

What Next?

So far in "In Cold Blood," the obvious has happened, along with a few surprises. From the very beginning, we all knew that the Clutter family was doomed, but the way it happened was quite a surprise to me. After the gruesome murder, they had pretty much every police officer and F.B.I agents investigating the case. When Rupp was cleared due to a polygraph test, a lot of people were dissappointed. In my opinion, their main concern was just finding someone that they thought did it, not the real killers. This would be much easier.

To my surprise, they came up with the conclusion that the murders tried to set it all up to look like a robbery gone bad. The only problem with Perry and Dick's plan was they really stole nothing of value. They took a small radio and whatever little cash the Clutters had lying around the house.

Though the killers made this silly mistake, they left behind little evidence. The only thing connecting them to the incident is, when the police took a picture of the mattress, the flash revealed a footprint with a distinct diamond shaped pattern on the bottom. Obviously, anyone could have these shoes but maybe, if they can find enough people, they will come up with a match through the process of elimination.

Motive for Murder

This book started off by focusing on the Clutters lives with the occasional look into Perry and Dick's lives. I feel like I should have foreseen a slight change in the focus now that the Clutters are dead, but I guess that's the immersiveness of this story. 

We are of course seeing and hearing more from the townspeople and their theories on the matter, but we are starting to see the nitty-gritty details of the crime start to surface.

Al Dewey, the head investigator for the case, is nearly as confused as everyone else is. He wonders why Mrs. Clutter and Nancy were tucked into bed after they were tied up? Why Kenyon had a pillow under his head and why Mr. Clutter's body was found on a mattress box? Dewey's main theory is so they could be more comfortable before their inevitable death. But why? Who would want to commit murder so bad, but try  so hard to make their last moments so peaceful?

The signs pointing to Dick and Perry as the murderers is pretty obvious now. Especially with Perry's mention of "do[ing] what we did". I can't help but sit back and try and be the investigator on this case myself. I see no connection between these two men and the Clutters and I see no motive for murder. I can see that they want to go to Mexico really bad and make a lot of money, but that doesn't seem to fit into the murders. As the investigators have said before, there was not a whole lot in the house that was disturbed,  which rules out robbery as a motive. If Dick and Perry wanted money, they would have taken more from the house or they would have targeted someone who actually carried cash on him, unlike Mr. Clutter. 

I've also begun to wonder why they want to go to Mexico so bad, out of all places, and whether or not that has anything to do with the murders. 

My super sleuth skills also have me questioning why they took Kenyon's radio and what I believe to be Mr. Clutter's binoculars. They kept the binoculars, but pawned the radio for a couple bucks almost immediately after. Again, if the motive for the murder was robbery, why are they selling only a few items?

Overall, these men are confident enough to think that they can escape being charged for murder and I'm curious to see the development in this conflict between them since they do end up getting caught in the end. They did a very good job of hiding the evidence. No shotgun shells left behind, few fingerprints. The only thing that Al Dewey was able to find was a footprint. 

I want to know what is going to be the clue that leads the investigators to these men since I see very few possibilities and leads. 

Damn you Capote!

So I've been reading a lot of this book lately; partially because it's really getting good, and partially because I want to get this aspect of "homework" over with. (Just being honest.) But I'm going to try to stick to the 40 page blog posts my group initially enforced. And since I'm a wee bit behind everybody else, what I have to say might simply be repeating fellow group members posts. Oh well.

So let me just start by saying that Truman Capote is an absolute genius. I am seriously lacking any creative ability, so to read a "novel" constructed in the way Capote uses is actually pretty cool. It's easy to get lost in this book because you essentially forget that it is non-fiction. For instance, he uses townspeople's testimonies as his dialogue, which for some reason, I find fascinating. 

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Capote's sense of writing was slightly boring. I now understand (because I have read further in) that the setup of the first forty or so pages is completely necessary. It creates a great suspense that you usually can't find in books. When the murders actually happen, Capote fails to go into great detail. Instead, he creates a scene, using locals reactions as the reveal. Even though you know who the murderers are and how they murdered the Clutters, you still get that great sense of mystery, encouraging continuous guessing and questioning. 

Like several of my fellow group members have mentioned before, the idea of the "traditional, American" family during this time period is a dominant motif that seems to continuously present itself. Capote focuses a lot on the locals of Holcomb and their reactions. Their fear is extremely present in the idea that the murderers could be walking amongst them in their small town, which clearly puts everybody on edge. This directly relates back to how and why Capote doesn't reveal the murders to the full extent initially. He is essentially placing us in the book, providing us with the same sense of fear the townspeople had.

It gets more interesting too...

Time & Travel

One specific aspect that leaves me scratching my head is the amount of mileage covered by Dick and Perry at any given time in the book. Perry reports the sum of all travel is upwards of ten thousand miles - my jaw dropped. I could hardly fathom anyone bouncing around so much in such a short amount of time as a month and a half, which for some reason sounds like a shorter span of time when you say "six weeks". There are a few reasons for this: 1 is that I have access to my own personal vehicle as well as infinite options for public transportation across land, sea, and air and I barely leave the 25 mile radius of my hometown where I lived the first eighteen years of my life. 2 is that I always hear horror stories about hitch hiking and yet they do so flawlessly and are able to move around so much by means of the generosity of fellow travelers. 3 is that distance and time seemed completely irrelevant to the impending doom that awaited Perry and Dick and I think that this was thanks to the juxtaposition of the perspective of the K.B.I. agents - because of the fact that this is a true story and we know the outcome, it feels to us like they are just shy of cracking everything wide open even though the text tells us that the trail to the answer "who-dun-it" has all but run cold. However, simultaneously, Capote characterizes and tells the stories of Hickock and Smith with such sophistication and skill that the audience almost cheers for them, able to somehow nearly forget the atrocities committed by these, pardon my language, seriously fucked up individuals. Another idea concerning time and travel is how this book has transcended time - hailed as one of the first and still the best of its kind. Not only is it still read for entertainment as well as laying the foundation for a creative nonfiction genre, it is still heavily debated and discussed as more comes out about the writing and researching (wink wink nudge nudge) of the book are revealed - not to mention the issues of inserting personal imaginings into real life events.

Better Late than Never

So I wish I had some amazing story to explain why I have failed to write more than one blog post, but sadly, I don't. I have been busy however: work, classes, midterms and disney channel Halloween movies have been consuming my time over the past couple of weeks causing my lack of attention to the blogging world. I apologize.

HOWEVER, I have made time to really delve into "In Cold Blood," which I am finding fascinating. High school english classes have really deterred me from what I like to call "englishy books." The amount of unnecessary analysis that is required to pass high school english classes is absurd. (MAYBE the blue curtains don't represent anything! MAYBE the author just likes the color blue!) Therefore, I was reluctant on starting "In Cold Blood." This reluctance didn't go away too quickly either. The first forty or so pages were rather drab...As a reader fully knowing what is going to happen, the style of writing Capote initially uses makes the read a tad boring. The anticipation of the murders, or rather the climax of the story, is dragged on and on while Capote describes what the Clutter's had for breakfast the day of their murder. But obviously, this is where that whole creative non-fiction aspect comes into play. What novel have you ever read that jumped immediately to the climax? This particular type of style though, does make it difficult to read. I found myself skipping pages frequently in hopes that the action would be on the next page. Because of this, it's really reminding me of "Crime and Punishment" by Fydor Dostoyevksy. I remember reading every other page of that book hoping something remotely interesting would happen. (Nothing ever did.) 

So what's so fascinating? This may seem contradictory, but the same ideas that make this book so boring, are the same ideas that create my fascination. When I was choosing "In Cold Blood" for my book club choice, I did a lot of background information searching. In earlier posts by this group, we talked about Capote's research on the two murderers, and a possible infatuation with one of them. It is believed that Capote became very "close" to Perry and Dick. I feel as though this "closeness" is portrayed within the beginnings of the book. The descriptions of both the Clutter family and the two criminals really allow the reader to get to know the "characters," almost in the way that Capote knew them. This aspect has me most intrigued for what is to come in the rest of the book.

What I like so much about "In Cold Blood," is that it keeps me guessing. I love that he is able to keep me questioning something I already know. Hopefully these questions are answered as I keep reading. 

Time - There Never Is Enough Of It

This post is not so much about the book as it is about my frustrations with the fact that there are only 24 hours in the day, and so much of my sixty minute intervals dedicated to sleep, hygiene, food, classes, homework, and my jobs. I am absolutely addicted to this book - I would say I can't put it down, but alas I sadly have to all too often. I still have yet to finish it but I am ahead of schedule for the forty page weekly intervals that my blog group originally agreed upon. I just couldn't help myself.
Also, I get so lost in the reading process that I plum forget to find myself time for the blog posts. But don't worry, when I am all done with this thing, they will be flooding in. I have so many ideas, so many questions, so many strange stirrings and sensations that this book conjurs up as the story progresses.

A book has not had this effect on me in a while - only a handful of works have been so profound within my mind. The most easily relatable notion is omething along the lines of what we'll call the Harry Potter effect - where as soon as you get your hands on a book, you find a space to read where you won't be disturbed for hours or if you're skilled enough even forgotten for days so you can charge through the novel in blissful peace. You lose all track of time and simply flip pages until you reach the back cover, and then get all depressed that the experience - as captivating and entrancing and hypnotizing as it was - is over.

Why do books have such a power over us? Why do we ignore the passage of times when we can observe the shadows on the walls dancing and changing with the coming and going of daylight? Why do we put aside sensations of hunger and fatigue and soldier through something that takes so much effort and self discipline? Is this masochistc - the way we disrupt our lives, destroy our sleep schedules, deprave our skin of sunlight and our stomachs of sustenance? Or is this sadistic - the way we plow through the story and its messages at a pace that brings the final words upon us all too quickly?

I love this book - I hate that I don't have more time to read it - and I will try and be more timely with posting my blogs and responding to ya'll.

Who Done It?

Throughout the novel, Capote continues to write from the perspective of the townspeople by including only relevant information that the people know, adding nothing that was discovered or inferred after the time period.  He completely skips the murder scene, jumping right to the next morning with a knock on the door from one of Nancy Clutter’s school mates. He does this as a way of prolonging the suspense of not knowing who the murderers are (though it’s pretty obvious that Dick and Perry are), so no one was there to witness it as no one was left alive. For this reason, there isn't anyone at this point who knows what happened, so the reader doesn't either.

                Rather, Capote attempts to unravel the events of the murder with the reader by including the reactions of the people of Holcomb. Everyone becomes a suspect and is trying to figure out who did it and why. There really isn't anyone who had motive, and very few people pass through town, leading them to believe it must be friends. The Rupp’s, their closest neighbors, become prime suspects, and there is speculation of Dick and Perry.

Capote does a nice job of captivating the reader by almost making them feel like a citizen of Holcomb because we only know as much as they do. We’re trying to figure out the murderers and what happened as they are, and we feel the paranoia of watching our backs, not knowing who is a friend or an enemy. It’s interesting to see the reactions of the people in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, so to have something happen like this is shocking to all. Capote wants this factor to be evident by turning the story over dominantly to their reactions instead of just a play-by-play of what happened. He makes it interesting because we have to actively read and participate by trying to figure out what happened, and see how the story plays out. 

So Far

  The Clutter Family enjoys a normal morning in Kansas while, across the state, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith get ready head over to their quiet little town and murder an innocent group of people. Capote takes us into the investigation with the police and the suspects. Before that, though, we travel with Smith and Hickock in their Chevy sedan across Kansas for a little while. When the arrived in Holcomb, it was a desolate town. "They skirted the northern rim of the town. No one was abroad at this nearly midnight hour, and nothing was open except a string of desolately brilliant service stations."

 Basically everyone is in question, seeing as though no one had the motive. The whole town of Holcomb is thrown into chaos and disbelief of this atrocity. Even Bobby Rupp was a suspect but he was cleared when he took a lie detector test.

Speculation and Accusation

Well, I'll say it. Spoiler Alert: the Clutters are dead. It took about sixty pages, but it happened. And in a rather grisly manner too. Graphic Material Alert: I knew ahead of time that they were all shot point blank in the head with a shotgun, but I did not know that each of them had been tied up before their brains were blown out. And the macabre picture of the youngest daughter's blood splattered all over her white teddy bear  is not a pleasant one.

Capote has decided to make note of a very interesting dynamic that developed in the town after the Clutters were murdered. Everyone became a suspect. Since there were so few clues left behind, everyone had to watch their back and keep an eye out and winder if they were next in line. The owner of a local cafe in the town, Bess Hartman had heard someone say that everyone was so anxious and paranoid because "All we've got out here are our friends. There isn't anything else". Few people actually pass through the town and most likely would have no motive for murdering the family, so it almost would have had to have been someone in the town.

The daughter's boyfriend Bobby Rupp was called in to be questioned. Was there some type of secret conflict there?

What about Alfred Stoecklein? A man who lived about a 100 yards from the Clutter family house. While he seems to have an alibi, it does seem awfully suspicious that he didn't hear four shots from a shotgun fired and he seems to have thought a lot about the wind direction and the location of the Clutter's barn that would have helped to deflect the noise.

Capote poses the question to us in the eyes of the towns people. We get a very strong sense that it was the characters Dick and Perry that did it, but there is no solid, in your face type of proof that screams "They are the murderers. They did it", in a clear, black and white manner.

But it also doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that the two prison convicts one of which had traveled 800 miles in the past twenty-four hours and the other who could be seen soaking his boots in a tub of warm, red-colored water were the ones involved.

Capote has left us in a sea of questions and wonders. What will be the next clue be and where will it be found? Who will be suspected because of it? What will become of the townspeople whose lives are now in quite a clutter (ba dum tiss)

The Who (Not the Band)

*A bit of a disclaimer is needed here. I meant to have this posted last week, but there was a bit of confusion and it did not and I'm posting this now because Professor Smith said that she wanted me to. So the information and details here in this post is going to be a bit old. Sorry for the confusion.*

I guess you guys can already tell that this book is about the murders of the Clutter family members based on reading the rest of my group members’ posts. Herbert Clutter, his wife, and two of their kids were shot pointblank and there were few clues left behind. In fear of spoiling the ending I won’t say who the murderers are. That’s the downside of looking up background information on the internet, right there.

            What I can give you is a reason as to why Truman Capote started writing this book. He heard about the four murders of the Capote family and he decided to travel to Kansas to write about the crime. At the time, no one knew who the murderer was. They, like everyone else were left in just as much mystery. Capote and his fellow author and friend, Nelle Harper Lee, talked to residents and investigators alike reporting on the crime.

The murderers were arrested six weeks after the murders and Capote spent six years working on the book. It became the one of the first works in the “true crime” genre. What is unique about this novel is that Capote looked at both the lives of the two parolees who committed the murders, the lives of the victims and the effect this had on their community. This is what makes this novel so unique from the rest and what helped it to pave the path for other non-fiction novels. 

Oh, the Irony

There are so many different way you can go about writing a novel, or really any piece of work, but with a murder that list is even greater because the content is already so rich, you really can't go wrong. However, I especially love the way that Capote has chosen depict the Clutter murder.

He begins simply by describing the morning of Herbert Clutter, innocently eating his breakfast and going work like any normal day. Then, he shifts to the two murders, and describes their day eating breakfast as well and acting perfectly normal. Capote continues to do this, quickly shifting between each side, slowly giving us a recap of the day’s events.

                What makes it interesting though is the fact that we as a reader know what’s going to happy, Perry and Dick are going to kill the entire Clutter family, and yet we’re reading about them drinking coffee and making cherry pie with their neighbors. He gives no indication of anything about to happen, and in fact makes it rather boring to read. He does this though to put the reader in the family’s situation. They have no idea of what’s to happen, so that’s how Capote wants the reader to feel. He makes it as innocent as possible to show the irony of the situation that we all know, yet no one else does. He makes it so that we’re just going through the day with the Clutter family, or with the murderers, yet we already know what’s going to happen and it’s a frustrating thing, especially with the mindless mundane tasks that each are performing. You want to be able to tell them what’s going to happen and to either get out or do something important, yet all we can do is read the descriptions. Capote wants the reader to feel helpless, just as the Clutter’s did on that fateful night.

Surprise Alert!

Upon actually getting a chance to crack the binding in the book, finally, I was actually surprised to find out how the book was written.

I knew it was going to be about the murders of Clutter family. I knew that Truman Capote had conducted interviews other local residents in the town and had looked into the actual evidence on the case. What I did not expect was an in-depth look into this family's life.

This book reads like a story and not like a man who is merely reporting on the murder he researched. We learn about who each character is, what makes them tick, their fears, wishes, habits and views.

We are also learning about another side story with two characters named Dick and Perry. They were in prison and from the lengthy description about their tattoos, they seem like tough guys who mean business. I'm guessing they are the murderers (I know I mentioned that I already read online who murdered the Clutters, but I don't remember their names and it seems safe to judge that these two side characters that can wield guns seem like likely suspects).

As of right now, all we know is that the day we have read about thus far is the last day that the Clutters were seen alive (ah, what a perfect way to leave all you readers hanging. But at least we have the same amount of knowledge for once and you know I'm not being a jerk and holding out on you).

Capote has found a way to keep the reader hanging off of every moment. From learning about all the nitty-gritty details about these people's lives I kept wanting to read on almost for the sake of understanding the characters. It's almost like hearing some great gossip or getting to open up someone's brain and see how they truly operate. Either way it's fascinating.

On top of this, Capote sometimes puts little cliffhangers at the end of certain paragraph breaks to make sure you aren't getting too bored or wondering when everything is going to be revealed. He tricks you into thinking that there is going to be some sort of answer in the next section, which there hasn't been. It still kept me reading and like a fool I thought, "maybe this paragraph". I was wrong every time. Maybe soon I'll be right.

Timing is EVERYTHING

The first forty pages of the novel provide a great deal of context for the "exceptional happenings" that are to take place later on in the story. Capote does this in such a manner that the reader does not realize just how much information about the time frame in which the book is set, because the period comes alive as if one is residing within it alongside the characters.

Firstly, this is a decade that precedes "Leave it to Beaver", so it is setting the stage for the golden age of the nuclear family. The unit in and of itself - the closeness and amount of respect is crucial, for the juxtaposition with the events of the narrative make it all the more horrifying.

Secondly, the issue of masculinity is prominent, especially with Mr. Clutter and the two perpetrators, Perry and Dick. One must work to earn his own, and then fight tooth and nail to keep it and prosper, or simply attempt to take it from another who has gone through such processes and then flee to Mexico. At the end of the day, it is all about monetary value equivocating to manhood. This is the ultimate goal, for better or worse, of our main characters.

Thirdly, the great depression has just ended. Granted, this theme ties into the previous idea, however, it holds weight all its own. During the recession and the second world war, fraternity and community were upheld to levels like never before. This is why the crimes that have yet to happen in the book have such an impact on the town of Holcomb - the contrast is, much like the passage of time in the pages, like day and night.