Dela Peña, Vince Clarence C.

December 01, 2023

10 – Bonifacio
Score:

BOOK REPORT

I. Title of the book: IN COLD BLOOD

II. Author: Truman Capote

III. Setting: Holcomb, Kansas, the city where the Clutter family lived
and farmed, is the unexpected backdrop for the novel In Cold
Blood which describes the murders of four members of a small
Midwestern town family, Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon Clutter.
This small town is one that no one ever expected to be the setting
of this well-documented murder. All Midwestern values and culture
were reflected on the evening of November 15, 1959, when Richard
Hickock and Perry Smith stunned Herb Clutter when the two entered
his quiet farmhouse home and proceeded to murder the father and
three other members of his family.

IV. Characters: Perry Edward Smith (“Perry”), Richard Eugene

Hickock(“Dick”), Herbert Clutter, Bonnie Clutter, Nancy Clutter,
Kenyon Clutter, Bobby Rupp, Alvin Dewey, Harold Nye, Roy Church,
Clarence Duntz, Tex John Smith, Susan Kidwell, Willie-Jay, Floyd
Wells, Lowell Lee Andrews, Mr. Helms, Alfred Stoecklein, Bess
Hartman, Barbara Johnson, Don Cullivan.

V. Plot:

A. Exposition
This stage of the plot sets up what's about to happen, even
though in this case, the reader already has been told that a
murder has taken place in the small Kansas town. The upstanding
and unsuspecting Clutters are going about their typical daily
routine in a chapter titled "The Last to See Them Alive." Two
petty criminals have hatched a scheme to rob them and leave no
witnesses. The criminals, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, make their
way from a town 400 miles away, and their car pulls up silently to
the Clutter home late at night.

B. Rising Action
The action here rises really quickly. The murders are
discovered and the killers are on the run. But who's this? Agent
Alvin Dewey, with his crack four agents and a taste for justice!
The deed is done, but Dewey is on Dick and Perry's trail. The
lawmen vow to solve the case but don't have any real leads.
Meanwhile, the killers start to worry that they can't possibly get
away with what they did. The plot tension mounts as the agents
pursue lead after fruitless lead.
 C. Climax
A former cellmate of Dick's reads about the murders in the
papers and knows whodunit. He'd worked for Herb Clutter and told
Dick that he kept a stash of money in a safe. Dick immediately
tells Floyd how he plans to rob and kill the family. Will Floyd
snitch on Perry and Dick and risk getting killed for being a rat?
He can't! He mustn't! Well, for some bucks and an offer of parole,
turns out that he will. Floyd turning state witness is the turning
point of the story, because without him, there wouldn't be a
story. Or, at the very least, there would be an entirely different
story.

D. Falling Action
With Floyd's testimony, Dewey and his agents slowly close in
on Dick and Perry over a period of six weeks. The two men are
captured, stand trial for the murder of the Clutter family, are
found guilty and sentenced to hang. It's a long wait. While they
wait, the readers get to hear the horrible details of the night of
the murders. We've waited 264 pages for them.

E. Resolution
At the gallows, Dick forgives his executioners and Perry
makes a short speech against capital punishment. After the two are
executed, in cold blood, Agent Dewey shares a poignant moment in
the graveyard with Susan Kidwell, now a beautiful young woman.
Susan represents the future, and the future looks happy and
bright. End scene.

VI. Moral Lesson: It is clear that the American dream is delicate, and
it only functions if trivial citizens are absent. For instance,
Herb Clutter’s American view would not have been crushed if it
were not for Smith and Dick. In addition, Smith’s character would
not have changed if his mother were taking care of him well. I
would advocate for our courts to be more reasoning and hold
everyone responsible for their own actions.

For instance, Smith did not deserve to die because of a

crime initiated by Dick. In addition, I would advocate for change
in the Child welfare department because, if at all they had been
keen on the happenings, Smith would not have been raised by a
drunkard mother and would not have been raised in orphanages where
he was constantly mistreated, hence killing his vision in life. By
doing this, the American dream cannot be shattered by some minor
details like security and the aptitude to find out one’s own fate.

Prepared by: VINCE CLARENCE C. DELA PEÑA

Submitted to: ROSEMARIE M. RICOHERMOSO (English Teacher)

 IN COLD BLOOD(SUMMARY)

In Cold Blood tells the true story of the murder of the Clutter family in
Holcomb, Kansas, in 1959. The book is written as if it were a novel, complete
with dialog, and is what Truman Capote referred to as "New Journalism" — the
nonfiction novel. Although this writing style had been used before, the craft
and success of In Cold Blood led to its being deemed the true masterwork of
the genre. For Truman Capote, it was the last in a series of great works,
which included Breakfast at Tiffany's, Other Voices, Other Rooms, and The
Grass Harp. In Cold Blood was originally published in four parts in The New
Yorker and then released as a novel in 1965. In Cold Blood took six years for
Capote to research and write, and it took an incredible toll on Capote,
personally — so much so that he never published another book again. In Cold
Blood is said to have been his undoing.

The book tells the story of the murder of the Clutter family, consisting of
Mr. and Mrs. Clutter and their two teenage children, Kenyon and Nancy (two
older daughters were grown and out of the house), and the events that lead the
killers to murder. The family was living in Holcomb, Kansas, and in November
1959, they were brutally killed, with no apparent motive, by Dick Hickock and
Perry Smith. The family was discovered bound and shot to death, with only
small items missing from the home. Capote read about the crime in The New
York Times soon after it happened, and before the killers were caught, he
began his work in Kansas, interviewing the people of Holcomb and doing
extensive research with the help of his friend Harper Lee, who would go on to
write the classic To Kill a Mockingbird.

Perry and Dick initially get away with the murder, leaving behind scant clues
and having no personal connection with the murdered family. Capote explores
the motive again and again within his text, eventually concluding that any
real motive for the crime lays within Perry — his feelings of inadequacy, his
ambiguous sexuality, and his anger at the world and at his family because of
his bad childhood. Dick plays the role of true outlaw, but the impact of the
killings weighs heavily on him, and his own role in the murders remains
unexplained and unclear.

The townspeople of Holcomb and other friends of the Clutters are deeply
affected by the murders. This includes Nancy's best friend, Sue, and Nancy's
boyfriend, Bobby. The townspeople perceived the Clutters as the family "least
likely" in the world to be murdered. Unable to conceive that the killers were
strangers, many of them become suspicious of everyone and anxious about their
own safety in the company of their neighbors. The man who heads the murder
investigation, Al Dewey, becomes obsessed with both the murderers and the
Clutter family. His need to find the killers becomes his driving force in
life.

While the anxiety in Holcomb grows, the killers move on with their lives. The
book follows Perry and Dick to Mexico and back, and incredibly, it seems that
they might never be found out and brought to justice. Ultimately, a living
witness who can tie the two men to the Clutters, footprints at the crime
scene, and the possession of a pair of binoculars and a radio from the Clutter
home become the pair's undoing. They are arrested and both confess to their
part in the crime. They are tried for murder and convicted; after many years
on death row, both men are hanged. During their time on death row, Perry
slowly reveals his personal thoughts, his ambitions, and the motives that
contributed to his life choices, including the fateful night he and Dick
entered the Clutter home.