Truman Capote’s attitude hey tries to convey in “In Cold Blood” is forgiving. In the book they KBI and the towns people mark the murderess as inhumane creatures, but later on in the story capote almost wants us to feel sorry for them because he tell us about the kind of child hood they had. I believe this aptitude he is trying to convey I captured very well in pages 252-253. In these pages Alvin Dewey is bringing Hickok and smith food because he doesn’t want them to sleep on an empty stomach. He convoy’s his attitude through imagery, detail, and tone. Capote’s imagery in these pages uses pathos to try and convince us to try to forgive Hickok and Smith because they are portrayed as victims too. I say this because he tries stretching our emotions by writing things like “He had on light summer pants and just an old cloth shirt. Surprised he didn’t catch pneumonia, considering how cold it was. But he looked sick all right.
White as a ghost” I do not know why Dewey feels so sorry for them, other than him knowing about their past, because I believe that they are murderers and they no justifiable cause for what they did. The details Capote used showed the sympathy and compassion of Dewey to Hickok and Smith. The prison gives them two meal a day, but Dewey goes out of his way to give them a third because did not want them to go to sleep Hungary. He tells smith that he personally made the pie and soup by himself and smith says he isn’t hungry. Personally I believe that, that is more than enough hospitality they deserve. But then even after all that, Alvin Dewey talks to smith and asks him what his favorite food is so that he can make it for him. The tone Capote conveys is sympathetic because Dewey speaks to Smith very calmly and even makes him feel safe. He tells him “nobody was going to harm him, regardless of what he’d done; folks around here aren’t like that.”
The Essay on Comparison Of Bradford And Smith
Although Captain John Smith and William Bradford, historians and leaders of their respective colonies, Jamestown and Plymouth, wanted to attract settlers to their colonies through their writings, the specific means they took to accomplish their goals varied. First, in spite of the fact each wanted to set an example for the colonists that joined them, Smith strived to attract those with courage and ...
Capote does not make Dewey have sympathy alone, he tries to make the audience feel sympathy for smith as well. Smith speaks of how when he saw the people in the square he is reminded of a biblical scene of where a man is thrown off a balcony and tore into pieces by a mob. He says that is what caused his stomach to hurt and why he did not eat. With this, Capote twists around from the beginning where he was incriminating them into making them a type of victim themselves. Capote wanted to show that even the murderers had to face through tragedy of always knowing that they are being hunted. Also the have to deal with the blood on their hands after executing a family. This combined with Hickok and smith’s past is why I believe Capote made Dewey feel sympathy towards them. That is why I believe Capote’s eventual attitude in this book was forgiving. This was a twist that I was not expecting because without these near ending pages the attitude would have been completely different.
