Novel Module 6 : The American Nightmare— In Cold Blood


  "I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat."  --Perry Smith, from In Cold Blood

Brothers, men who live after us,
Let not your hearts be hardened against us,
Because, if you have pity for us poor men,
God will have more mercy for you.
                                    --Francois Villon, "Ballad for Hanged Men"


Commentary
Study Guide
Study Questions  
Thematic Questions  
Biblio/Webliography
Further Your Learning





 
Commentary

Since the early frontier days, America has been fascinated by violence and outlaws, a fact reflected in the stories and songs of popular culture. Such fascination did not subside as America created a more established order: twentieth century America has produced a number of novels, songs, and, most noticeably, movies, exploring the personalities and terrible deeds of criminals.  Movies, such as Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Terrence Malick’s Badlands (1973) about the killer Charles Starkweather, and more recently, Spike Lee’s Summer of Sam (1999), not only feature the outlaw as a character, but  also try to say something serious about the larger American culture in relationship to its outcasts. But whereas in the late nineteenth early twentieth centuries, Americans  often viewed outlaws as heroes, as men and women who shared their origins and were acting against institutions they themselves despised, the newer writing and cinema necessarily depict outlaws in a far darker light.

Just prior to this series of movies (now about real criminals opposed to the fictional gangsters of earlier movies), Truman Capote, in 1965, took the logical step of what had been the territory of popular culture and newspapers and turned it into serious art form for which he coined the term non-fiction novel. The combination was intended to achieve historical accuracy, but was also free to use fictional devices to shed creative light of actual events. Reading about the murder of an entire family in Holcomb, Kansas, Capote arranged to interview the convicted killers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock.  He became fascinated not only with the murderers’ personalities and crime, but even more so with the harsh contrast these outcasts and their actions made against the utter normality of the small, mid-western, middle-class town of Holcomb and the nearly unqualified wholesomeness of the family they killed.

Other non-fiction novels of note include: Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1968) about the writer Ken Kesey’s acid commune (another type of outlaws); Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night (1968) about Pentagon March Mailer took part in 1967 in protest against the Vietnam War, and Executioner’s Song (winner of the 1980 Pulitzer Prize) about Gary Gilmore, who after being convicted of robbing and killing two men insisted on being executed for his crime; and Don DeLillo’s Libra (1988) about Lee Harvey Oswald and the Kennedy assassination.  These books differ from the historical novel in that the central characters are real (not invented), and the writers strive for documentary accuracy where facts are known.  The novelists, however, also use fictional devices—such as nonlinear presentation of time, and access to the inner-lives and emotional states of real-life characters (even when the character himself might be inarticulate)—to shed interpretative light upon the events.  For example, Capote shapes Perry as an American misfit whose violent aggression is more motivated by social detachment than by than anger.  The intent is not, however, to provide a final interpretation or explanation, as say with a work journalism or sociology, but to offer an interpretation open to further analysis, as with other works of art. 

Some critics object to hyphenated art forms, such as the non-fiction novel or the prose-poem, arguing in combining genres neither is done well. This objection, however, is not well founded, because it would close off artistic experimentation and evolution, which is neither desirable nor possible. New art forms evolve as artists (who Ezra Pound once referred to as “the antennae of the race”) express new points of view about their materials.  Thus, as serious artists adapt the materials of contemporary current news events and shape them with selected fictional devices, they are giving us insight into who we are and how we live. 

One of the insights that can be inferred from these works is that we have become voyeuristic in our fascination with violence and people who act out. Another insight is that our fascination with celebrities, such as Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, President Kennedy, Lee Harvey Oswald, and  a number of well-known serial killers (all of whom have been used as central characters in non-fiction novels) have become the central characters in our individual and collective imagination in the same way that fictional characters, such as Huck Finn, Daisy Miller, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Atticus Finch and his daughter Scout once were.  The former fictional creations were models of behavior we could use to help us develop our own character, or they were cautionary examples of what we might become if we did not develop a inner strength of character.  Many of the protagonists in today’s literature are central not because of their inner character or lack thereof but their outward fame or infamy.

 Much of contemporary fiction and non-fiction, by contrast to the earlier work, seem to suggest that life is more arbitrary than we had imagined.  They offer real examples of life, even the well-ordered life suddenly becoming a chaotic nightmare that no inner strength can control or outsmart. The events of the non-fiction novel, because they are real rather imagined ones, threaten our peace of mind.  At the same time that our national leaders are giving optimistic views of our historical economic, social, and technological progress, our literature often casts a pessimistic, dark, and foreboding light our lives, suggesting our extreme vulnerability to irrational forces.
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Study Guide

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, 1965

Form: Non-fiction novel

Setting:  Kansas, especially Holcomb, and the mid-west, from the Clutter murder in November 1959 to the execution of Smith and Hickock in April 1965 (also includes flashbacks into characters’ pasts).

Structure:
 The work is divided into four titled sections, 75 to 100 pages each:
1. The Last to See Them Alive
2. Persons Unknown
3. Answer
4. Corner
Within each section, the narrative switches back and forth to focus on the experiences of different characters.  Summarize the content of each section (the order in which Capote recounts the events to readers); and analyze the effect of the alternating points of views.  Discuss how the author’s structure of the story to some extent shapes the reader’s experience and interpretation.

Narrative Point of View: Capote, who extensively researched the case, is the narrator; however, he does not include himself in the story.  His point of view is mostly objective (told in a documentary, nonjudgmental manner), but it is also sympathetic without being sentimental. Note of interest: Harper Lee, who wrote To Kill a Mockingbird, knew Capote as a child and was his research assistant for this book.

Main Characters: The central characters are Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, along the Clutter family: Herb and Bonnie Clutter, and their teenage children Nancy and Kenyon.  Nevertheless, to enlarge the scope of the narrative, Capote also details the personalities of many secondary characters, such as Al Dewey, Susan Kidwell, Bobby Rupp, Mr. and Mrs. Hickock, Tex and Flo Smith, Willie-Jay, and Floyd Wells.   Discuss the significance of the secondary characters.

Recommendation for Reading Strategy: Read the book in two sittings, two sections at a time.  Use the suggestions in “Structure” to help you to keep track of the order of events and the characters and later to analyze their significance.
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Study Questions

1.    Discuss the importance of the setting (focus on Holcomb, Kansas).

2.    Capote carefully depicts the personalities of secondary characters, such as Al Dewey, for example. Why do you think he does this and what do these detailed portraits add to book?  Which of the secondary characters do you find most memorable and why?

3.    Capote recounts the story in a certain order, beginning with the day of the murder, and proceeding to the discovery of the bodies, the investigation of the crime and capture of the criminals, and the trial and execution.  At what point does Capote depict the murder scene?  How does he work Perry’s and Dick’s backgrounds into the narrative?  Think of alternative plot structures that Capote could have used, and analyze why you think Capote structures the events as he does?

 
4.    Discuss the tone of the book (tone reveals the author’s attitude toward his material) which is objective (or non-judgmental) but also sympathetic. If you were the writer would you have used the same tone?  If not, what tone would you have adopted, and why?

5.    In Cold Blood is documentary but also literary. For example, in the beginning of the book, as Capote describes the Kansas farmland, he writes: “The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracefully as Greek temples are visible long before a traveler reaches them” (italics added).  Capote, in this brief passage, evokes the pastoral (which suggests the themes of rural life and paradise and fall) and he also evokes the high seriousness of the Greek tragedy (which suggests themes of the state, such as justice, and connects the crimes of individuals to the health or the state). Discuss the relationship between the specific crime and the health of the state (meaning other citizens and our institutions).

6.    Find other salient examples from the text in which Capote uses literary language, and discuss the effects.  This exercise increases your appreciation of the text as a work of art, and also increases your sensitivity to and ability to analyze language.
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Thematic Questions

Insider/Outsider Stance of Central Characters: Examine the Clutter’s status as insiders against Perry and Dick’s status as misfits and outlaws.  In their fantasies Perry and Dick both dream of becoming insiders by imagining themselves in stereotypical terms of American masculine identities.  What are the specific attributes they imagine will give then not only insider status but celebrity status?  Adolescents sometimes have dreams similar to Dick’s and Perry’s.  Does the novel suggest why some people out-grow of these dreams and others do not?  Does the novel suggest why some people act out while others, who might secretly have the same dreams, do not?

Solitary Contemplation: Locate passages that depict Perry Smith’s fantasy life.  He seems almost unable to tell the difference between his inner life and reality.  Compare and contrast Smith’s fantasies with those of other characters from other works, such as Gatsby, for example. Dick Hickock seems to have less of an inner life, but what are his fantasies?  A Dewy, the investigator, also has passages that depict his thoughts. Contrast his reflections to Perry’s and Dick’s.

The American Dream: Much of literature today suggests that the American Dream is being threatened by lawlessness.  Some version of the American Dream seems to provoke Perry and Smith to commit their crime; and Herb Clutter, who is its embodiment, suddenly loses everything—his well-ordered life and those of his family are senselessly destroyed in one night. Do you think our literature’s fascination with the outlaw and society’s anxiety over becoming victims is an accurate reflection of our lives today?  Does, or does not, thoughtful literature (opposed to thrillers) offer anything to help us understand better understand the times in which we live and better cope with our anxieties?

American History: Holcomb, Kansas appeared to Capote as the very embodiment of traditional American ideas—hard work and endurance, living close to the land, strong religious traditions, a sense of community; and the Clutters seemed an exemplary family, wherein, the father was a strong provider and authority figure who was raising his children to become successful, contributing adults.  The crime, however, suggests that history ever has the potential of becoming a nightmare against which the individual has little control, and that the state can exercise control only after the fact. In addition to crime, what are some of the other themes in literature today that suggest that history can, of perhaps already has, become nightmare?
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Biblio/Webliography

  Truman Capote  
  truman capote: a black and white tribute  

For further biographical and critical background on Capote and In Cold Blood, refer to:

Further Your Learning

•    Rent the film version of In Cold Blood and compare the visual text with the written one.  Although there is a more recent HBO version, the original 1967 version, directed by Richard Brooks is by far the better of the two.

•    The non-fiction novel is a genre that fascinates many readers because it combines historical realities with fictional devices to explore, interrogate, and imaginatively re-create actual events. If this genre appeals to you, you may want to read a recent and notable work in this vein, Don DeLillo’s Libra (1988), which explores Lee Harvey Oswald’s life in reference to the Kennedy assassination.

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