Character Development in In Cold Blood: From the Clutters to Their Killers Anonymous 11th Grade

A majority of the world would agree that random murder is unethical and deserving of severe punishment- especially if this murder is done to an innocent, kind family. However, there is a great debate over the extent of punishment which random murder deserves. Should capital punishment be permitted? What is human life worth, and who has the authority to declare it? In the nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, author Truman Capote fully characterizes the victims, the Clutter family, using dialogue and outside descriptions in order to help the reader comprehend the loss and murder of the family more fully, and to ironically humanize the murderers Dick and Perry using parallelism; this is done in order to subtly suggest Capote's belief that capital punishment is wrong.

As the reader gets to know the Clutter family members through dialogue and outside description, the characters become more real to the reader, so their deaths feel more personal. First, we read a description of Nancy, "a pretty girl... [whose] eyes... made her immediately likeable, [they] at once announced her lack of suspicion" (Capote 19). Nancy's eyes stand out, especially because of their reflection of her innocence. She is personified here as a doe eyed gazelle...