Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Non-Fiction Novel

Throughout the first part of In Cold Blood, Capote introduces numerous characters into the story with great detail. The thoroughness in which he goes into regarding every main or insignificant character gives the reader the impression that the story is fictional coming from Capote’s intricate imagination. Prior to the murder, Nancy is described as the perfect girl, a role model for all younger girls, and always exceeding the expectations set for her. Nancy is described as, “she felt it her duty to be available when younger girls came to her wanting help with their cooking, their sewing, or their music lessons—or, as often happened, to confide. Where she found the time, and still managed to ‘practically run the big house’ and be a straight-A student, the president of her class, a leader in the 4-H program and the Young 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 wagonload, and do so without ‘brag,’ with, rather, merely a radiant jauntiness” (18). After reading this passage, one has absolute picture in their mind as to what Nancy Clutter was really like due to the specific details mentioned about her. Since the character of Nancy is so developed, one would think that Truman Capote himself created her. They way in which Capote explains Nancy does not sound like a simple report preparing the reader for the murder that is about to occur. Due to the extensive descriptions given on Nancy, Capote’s writing reads as if it were a fictional novel rather than a journalistic account.

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