Justice In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

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In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a documentary account of an American crime in an isolated town of Holcomb, Kansas. In this Nonfiction novel the first “characters” introduced were the innocent family of four who were brutally murdered. The Clutter family was very well-known around the Holcomb area, it came to a big shock as to why anyone would commit any crime against them. Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were also in surprise when a robbery turned into a murder scene. Capote then draws out the investigation to find the two fugitives the led to the capture, and the dramatic execution of the killers. Capote makes it a point to structure his novel ending with the murderer’s death instead of the deaths of the family to capture …show more content…
While tying in the entire novel the author importantly makes a point to show how society as a whole craves revenge instead of the court who enforces the laws. In pages 335-336 the author describes Dick Hickock a murderer on death row the hypocrisy of the death penalty and that the people of Garden City have no morals. This novel is created in a way to prove and question certain belief systems. The death penalty is created to enforce justice, to society not the courthouse. Killing one for killing another, this goes against religious beliefs and Truman Capote explicitly shows how the morals are abandoned for their selfish emotions. Even at the Courthouse when Dick and Perry are arriving at the jail and people flock to the square and almost celebrate. Capote describes this scene as if it were a festival, or entertainment that signifies that society is unhuman when it comes to justice. Capote’s structure of the nonfiction novel is set out in a way that in a regular book it would usually end with the killings, and this novel ended with the killings of the murderers, which shows that his main point was on the murderers and how they died, the death penalty. Truman Capote’s entire novel is centered on how the people rule the justice system and that separation of church and state doesn’t

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