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Example research essay topic: One Of The Men Truman Capote - 1,175 words

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In Cold Blood I didnt 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. (p. 110) These are the words spoken by Perry Smith, one of the men who on November the 15 th, 1959 killed the four members of the Clutter household. In Cold Blood, a nonfiction novel by Truman Capote tells just what happened on the days before and after the murder of the Clutters. Right up until the time the two murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are hanged.

While in prison, Dick Hickock hears a cellmate s story about $ 10, 000 in cash kept in a home safe by a prosperous rancher. When he s paroled, Dick persuades ex-con Perry Smith to join him going after the stash. On a November night in 1959, Dick and Perry break into the Holcomb, Kansas house of Herb Clutter. Enraged at finding no safe, they wake the sleeping family and brutally kill them all the rancher, his wife, and their teenage son and daughter. The bodies are found by two family friends who come by before Sunday church. The murders shock the small Great Plains town, where doors were routinely left unlocked.

The killers then travel to Mexico, Hickock playing their way with bad checks. Tension grows in the complicated relationship between smooth-talking but malevolent Dick and half-Cherokee Perry, a moody little man with stunted legs who likes to sing and play the guitar. When their money runs out, they return to the States, pass more bogus checks and steal a car. They are finally caught and taken to federal prison where they undergo seven years before they are finally hung for murder.

It is not only with a sick sensation of horror but with simple, genuine human sympathy that we watch the senseless murder of the four Clutters. Depicted with even greater care and with an insight always controlled by the facts of their lives, by their confessions, and by the testimony of others who had known them, are the two loathsome murderers. The most important characters, or rather people, in this nonfiction novel are the Clutters and the killers Perry and Dick. Mr. Clutter was a highly respected member of his community who had made his wealth from his wheat farm. He is a member of the church, the Farm Credit Board and was the founder of the Kansas Wheat Growers Association as well as a respected leader of the community.

His wife Bonnie was a nervous (7) woman who suffered from little spells (7). She had just recently, however, been put in the hospital for spine problems, which seemed to help her case tremendously. Nancy, Herb s daughter and the town darling (7), was a sweet and feminine girl. Nancy, at the ripe young age of sixteen, already had many beaus and had appeared in many productions at her school. She was just beginning to bloom.

Kenyon, the youngest at fifteen and yet also the tallest, was in the school band. He was considered by many to be off somewhere you never knew what he was thinking (52) Kenyon was what one might call a genius, restless and anxious. And then one comes to the killers. Perry Smith, a natural killer, (55) and one of the men who murdered the Clutter family.

Perry is described as A powerful man no more than the size of a twelve year old (15). Perry, with good looks and an artistic bent, who lived a damaged life and yearns for love, is a dreamer and an artist, definitely the more passive and gentle of the two. Then there is Dick, a tattoo covered athletic blonde youth that seems to be dumb but is actually very intelligent. He is the more masculine and dominant of the two.

One sees him as a ladies man and a shifty-eyed sociopath whose intellectual heights reach no higher than girlie and car magazines. This work takes place at the end of the 1950 s, in a more innocent America, a small rural farm town. At this time everyone left their doors unlocked and everyone knew everyone else. There was peace in America and trust was the basis of the community where the Clutter family raised their four children, two of which had already set out on their own. After reading this nonfiction novel I have come to realize that even killers are human. I have always seen them as these evil beings but this book has made me realize that there can be killers among us and we would never know it.

In Cold Blood reveals the evil deep within human nature. Capotes intent was to conduct a literary experiment and create a nonfiction work that read like a novel. He chose a murder not for the subject itself, but because the case would provide enough facts for a large-scale work. Capote achieved more than just inventing a new genre journalism written with the language and structure of literature. The images of this tale continue to resonate in our minds: 16 -year-old Nancy Clutter talking on the phone to her best friend about her boy problems, the slit throat of Herb Clutter, the cords tying their arms and legs, Perry Smiths Gibson guitar and his dreams of gold in a tropical paradise the blood on the walls and the final thud-snap of the rope-broken necks. He also used a lot of descriptive details to make the people more real to us, the readers.

It helps you to picture and understand each person in a different light. Truman Capote also uses what one might call a teaser. He switches from one character to the next making you wait to find out what happens with the last character. I thought I would really like this book. But, when your stomach isn t very strong, as mine, you tent to not enjoy bloody novel such as this one. The details in it are gory and sickening to any person who can t handle the thought of blood.

I myself found myself sick more than once while reading this novel. It wasn t similar to any other book I have ever read. I thought the writing style was just right, catchy and not at all dull or droning. But I could have done with a few less bloody details. You see, once I started reading I was actually getting into the characters but then I came to the actual killing and I actually, I kid you not, got sick. I found the book to be a horrifying, chilling, blood curdling distasteful piece of literature.

I was perturbed that anyone could just sit and read about killing innocent people. It really opened up my eyes to how real the world is. The fact that things like this happen every day all over the world, well it frankly disturbed and astounded me. In conclusion, I don t think I would recommend this to any person of weak stomach.


Free research essays on topics related to: perry smith, clutter family, cold blood, truman capote, one of the men

Research essay sample on One Of The Men Truman Capote

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