254 Capote, Truman
inclined to rebel and more willing to subordinate
themselves to the upper class. Acts of reward by the
upper class also allow them to reinforce their domi-
nant place in the hierarchy. When Qin-shi’s little
maid, Gem, takes her own life on learning of the
death of her mistress, she is admired by the rest of
the Jia clan for her rare devotion. Her posthumous
ascension in rank is a message of reinforcement for
the other maids to be loyal and obedient.
Edwina Quek
CAPOTE, TRUMAN In Cold Blood: A
True Account of a Multiple Murder and Its
Consequences (1965)
Truman Capote (1924–84) claimed that with his
book In Cold Blood, first published in The New Yorker
in 1965 and in book form in 1966, he invented the
genre of true crime. The book has been immensely
popular, evidenced by two film adaptations and two
films about Capote’s writing process. Literary schol-
ars, critics, and students are particularly interested
in it because, although the material in it is factually
accurate, the text can be read like a work of fiction.
Readers can identify common literary themes such
as illness, justice, and freedom.
The catalyst for In Cold Blood is “four shotgun
blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.” This
sentence, early in the book, informs the reader
simultaneously that the Clutters—Herb, Bonnie,
and their children Nancy and Kenyon—are mur-
dered, and that the murderers, Dick Hickock and
Perry Smith, die as well. Dick and Perry, with their
checkered pasts and tattooed bodies, stand in stark
contrast to the clean, wholesome American image
upheld by the Clutters and the citizens of their
small hometown, Holcomb, Kansas. That the reader
learns early on about their deaths centers the book
on the consequences of the murder rather than on
the murder itself.
In Cold Blood involves a host of characters: the
Clutter family; the investigators from the Kansas
Bureau of Investigation—Al Dewey, Harold Nye,
Roy Church and Clarence Duntz; the murderers
Dick and Perry; their families and acquaintances;
and the townspeople of Holcomb. It concurrently
follows the murder investigation and Dick and Per-
ry’s road trip to Mexico and back, culminating with
their apprehension in Las Vegas; their confession to
the crime; the trial; and, ultimately, their execution.
Ethan MeyersFreedOm in In Cold Blood
Dick Hickock and Perry Smith’s plan to rob the
Clutter family was to be their last job and should
have provided enough money for Dick and Perry to
have the free lives they had only imagined. But the
crime is botched and becomes brutal: The money
they expect to find does not exist, and they inex-
plicably kill four members of the family, providing
the title event for Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.
Rather than simply vilify the murderers, Capote
presents Dick and Perry’s histories, dreams, and
hopes to suggest, in part, that the multiple murder
and the trail of crime that follows are Dick and
Perry’s flailing stabs at unrealistic conceptions of
freedom. Perry defines freedom in terms of escapist,
boyish fantasies of buried treasure, and Dick can
only conceive of an individualistic freedom. Both
men are unable to reconcile their fantasies of free-
dom with the social responsibilities that Perry’s sis-
ter says are necessary in order to live in a free society.
According to his father, freedom means more
to Perry than anything. This value is understand-
able in light of his long history of confinement: As
a child, he lived at the whims of rodeo parents and
was orphaned and abused in a convent; as an adult,
he became confined by his maimed legs and served
time in jail. In response to the realities of confine-
ment, Perry develops a concept of freedom symbol-
ized by an imaginary parrot that saves him and
savages his enemies, and by boyish dreams of sunken
ships and buried treasure. The parrot visits Perry
throughout his life, first during an especially abu-
sive episode at the convent, and later when he is on
death row. His parrot visions are matched by dreams
of a carefree tropical life that belie his existence as
an ex-convict and an inmate on death row. His life
is anything but the carefree tourist life he imagines.
Vacation advertisements for the Caribbean island
of Cozumel in a men’s magazine naturally appeal
to Perry as they unite his dreams of freedom in a
single image of parrots flying from the mainland
every year to lay their eggs. For a brief moment,