Truman Garcia Capote’s, In Cold Blood, was a revolutionary piece of writing as it was the first of its genre— the non-fiction novel written in a time of journalism. Capote takes the form of a narrator intended to be seen as just giving the facts of the murders, the investigation that followed, and the subsequent execution of the criminals. However, in reality, Capote intertwined himself with the two-year investigation and over the course of the two years became increasingly close to the killers, Perry Smith, and Richard Hickock. Due to Capote’s connection to Smith, the novel is written to force the readers to experience feelings of sympathy similar to what he feels toward Smith, and to accomplish this Capote manipulated his research and sources to act as his own voice.
Capote uses rather positively connotated language when discussing Smith however in stark contrast does not hold back from casting Hickock in a negative light. It’s through this we can infer that Capote favored Smith. His use of language also serves to garner sympathy for Smith. Capote did not want the world to simply write off Hickock and Smith as vicious killers and be done with them, specifically Smith. The borderline obsessive way Hickock is cast in an unbalanced negative light clearly demonstrates that Capote was too close to Perry to claim the book was written factually and is unbiased. Capote writes as if he was not a part of the story himself, simply acting as a narrator telling a story, however, this is not the case. In the novel, Capote frequently inserts unjournalistic comments that sway our opinions toward a certain killer, namely Smith. Capote tells us information that is obviously included to further his own agenda.
The loaded language used when we are told Smith had “no respect for people who can’t control themselves sexually” (201) both sway the readers to believe Smith is morally better than Hickock and to remind the reader of Hickocks negative traits, again. There is no logical reason for Capote to include this unless to evolve his initially innocent praise later evolves into that Smith did not deserve the death penalty but Hickock did. Capote stays true to his favoring of Smith by garnering sympathy for him by saying the justice system is flawed for punishing him due to his less-than-ideal upbringing. We learn most of what we know about Perry from Perry. Despite Perry claiming that having “no rule or discipline, or anyone to show me right from wrong” (454) is why he became the way he is, he demonstrates repeatedly that he does, in fact, understand right from wrong. For example, when he is reflecting on the murder and the dollar they gained from it he speaks of “the shame. Disgust. And they’d told [him] to never come back to Kansas.” Perry Smith admits here that he knows right versus wrong. Even within the book, we can see him lying and manipulating so it is only logical to assume he could do the same to Capote.
At the end of Smith and Hickock’s lives, which is also the end of the book, Capote continues creating sympathy for Smith. His vivid description of Smith’s last moments when “[Smith’s] expression was sober. His eyes glazed.” (340). The sympathetic diction used to describe how Smith’s life was slipping away gives the effect that Capote believed Smith did not deserve to die. As further justification for Smith’s actions, Capote suggests that the justice system is flawed in how it deals with mental illness. Smith did not truly have a motive for killing the Clutters, and it was Dr.Jones that suggested Smith was mentally disabled as a reason for the killing. Dr.Jones stated “Perry Smith shows definite signs of severe mental illness… Two features in his personality makeup stand out as particularly pathological….In evaluating the intentions and feelings of others, his ability to separate the real world from his own mental projections is very poor” (296-297) No one seems to go into this much effort for Richard Hickock, the most they say is maybe it was because of the concussion he had while he was younger. Hickock is a painted black sheep, in reality, Smith and Hickock are guilty of the same crime but Hickock will always be remembered as the brutal murderer. This is not justice to the Clutters or Hickock or the town. Capote again intertwines himself into the book when we can see him in Dewey. Maybe Capote and Dewey were similar in their opinions or perhaps Capote made it that way. Dewey struggles in the book with his sympathy for Smith and his morality reminding him that the Clutters deserve justice. Capote seems to have a similar struggle with his affection for Smith and his morality reminding him of his original goal in writing the book, to write a non-fiction novel. Dewey says in a moment of sympathy for Smith that “the crime was a psychological accident, virtually an impersonal act.” (245) But at the same moment he is engulfed by the memory of the horrific “prolonged terror, [the Clutters] had suffered.’ (246) In conclusion, Capote wrote the book to persuade us that crimes committed by those with a rough upbringing do not deserve to be punished in the same severity as a killer with no justifiable reason and had the traditional nuclear family should be punished.