in cold blood

In Cold Blood - New Journalism

Between 1960s and 1970s journalists started to present the information in a form usually used in fiction - writing events with history.

Tom Wolfe: The properties of new-journalism

-Scene by Scene Construction: It means to learn the events first, to put it into order and then explain it with all details.

Because it is re-created the story is like a movie. There are long, short angles in the novel.
It makes to reader feel like there is no narration, as if the events are shown from the camera.
This property makes the film more objective.

-Dialogue: leads people to interpret about the events. It also means to make interpretations; defining and establishing the characters. This makes the novel more subjective.

-The Third Person: makes the novel more objective - omniscient narrator.

-Status Details: Truman Capote investigates everything about the event in detail. He made 8000 pages reading and 6 year investigation to write In Cold Blood.

In this novel real world and fiction are connected to each others successfully. Capote travelled to Kansas, did interviews, found the detective, and reported last death of the death obsessed criminals. The crime was so vividly re-created.
Clutters are sympathized in the novel. Capote makes the reader hate from dick and Perry, but also we can't hate them. Perry also is shown as victim in the novel.
The last part of the novel is the prison part which is more objective. The reader learns the murderers with their own words - private lives. So the reader is able to see them from different perspectives when he/she learns about their past.
Perry has mental-illness. The nun beats him so much. His mother is an alcoholic and forsaken them.
Perry's first aim to go Kansas is to see his friend Willy Jay who he meets in the prison. However, he is not able to see him and he goes with Dick.
Dick's mother does not want Perry into her house because they believe that Dick is healed and don't want him to see anybody from prison.
They say that they going to see Perry's sister to take money from her for job. Dick is so much fond of his family.
Jom Walls is the person who tells the story of Clutters to Dick. He says that there is no eye-witness about the event. However he forgets everything he said to Walls about the robbery. Dick and Perry are totally sure that they will be no execution.
Perry has a box which he always carries with him. They go to Mexico after the murder but they decide to come back. Perry carries the boots he wore on the murder.
After they are caught the events are revealed. The church loses its importance because people see that good people are also murdered.