In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is about a well known and much loved family (known as the Clutter Family) who was brutally murdered in their own home in Holcomb. Found tied up and all killed by a shotgun. In Cold Blood is based on solving who did it and their motives. The murder mystery is solved by the Kansas Borough of Investigation or the KBI. Members of the KBI such as Nye, Duntz, Dewey and Church helped to find out who killed the Clutter Family.
This novel caught my interest when I found out it was about mystery and crime. For that reason, I really enjoyed the book. I love reading through the novel and try to solve the case with the narrator and characters. It almost feels as if the clues are being presented to you and you have to put them together. I also enjoyed the way the book was formatted. I liked how the book was in three parts and how each had a different topic. For example, the first part of the book was really getting to know the Clutters and how great they are up until their untimely death.
“Then, touching the brim of his cap, he headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that is would be his last” (Capote 13). This quote is significant because it foreshadows the murder of Mr. Clutter. Later to find out that the whole family will get murdered. It clearly shows us that something is going to happen to Mr. Clutter, but we don’t know at the time of reading it whether or not it is something good or bad that is going to stop his walks home. I think the author used foreshadowing in this quote really well by setting this dark tone.
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“At the time not a soul in sleeping Holcomb heard them – four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives” (Capote 5). Another quote I found also has foreshadowing in it. This quote is foreshadowing the four shotgun shots needed to kill the four members of the Clutter family. It is interesting that this was added because at the time of reading it you sort of look over it as if it’s meaningless, but when we find about about the four murders used by a shotgun. This quote may come to mind or give you somewhat of a déjà vu feeling.
“I can’t imagine you afraid. No matter what happened, you’d talk your way out of it” (Capote 36). In this quote Mr. Ashida said to Mr. Clutter that he could never imagine him being afraid. His reason to think this is because of Mr. Clutters well known attribute of being “a fearless self-assurance” (Capote 36).
‘I wasn’t kidding him. 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’ (Capote 244). This quote shows how dark and deranged Perry is. The way Perry said this was very offsetting because he is saying that before he cut his throat he was soft-spoken and very nice. This means Mr. Clutter could of been trying to yell at them for doing this but wasn’t very soft-spoken because he had just had his throat cut.
”When I was a girl’, she had once told a friend, ‘I was pretty sure trees and flowers were the same as birds or people. That they thought things, and talked among themselves. And we could hear them if we really tried. It was just a matter of emptying your head of all other sounds. Being very quiet and listening very hard. Sometimes I still believe that. But one can never get quiet enough” (Capote 122). I found this quote significant because it is referring to the murder of the Clutter family. Directly after the murder, neighbors were saying that they hadn’t heard a thing the night of the murder. Although no one heard it they can’t be quite enough, meaning they weren’t quiet enough to not be caught.
