Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg

Englisches Seminar

Wissenschaftliche Arbeit

______________________________________________________________________

Truman Capote′s Nonfiction Novel In Cold

Blood

and

Bennett Miller′s Biopic Capote ­ a Comparison

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Vorgelegt von:

Michael Helten

August 2008

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Table of Contents

1

Introduction

1

2

Genre

4

2.1

Capote′s Literary Development toward the Nonfiction Novel

4

2.2

The Nonfiction Novel ­ an Altogether New Concept?

6

2.3

The Nonfictional in the NONFICTION Novel ­ a True Account?

9

2.4

The

Novelistic

in

the

Nonfiction

NOVEL

13

3

Style

18

3.1

Structure

18

3.2

Language 23

4

Setting

31

4.1

The Rural Homestead

31

4.2

The Road

32

5 Character

35

5.1

Perry

38

5.2

Dick

45

5.3

The Clutter Family

47

6

In Cold Blood

and

the

American

Dream

53

6.1

The Portrayal of American Society in

In

Cold

Blood

54

6.2

The

American

Dream

56

6.3

The American Nightmare in

In Cold Blood

58

6.4

Society′s

Reaction

­

the

Trial

60

7

In Cold Blood

on

Film 64

7.1 Miller′s

Biopic

Capote

66

7.2

Capote′s

Two

Sides

72

7.3

Capote

and

Perry

77

8

Conclusion

87

9 Works

Cited

88

10

Appendix

94

10.1 Segmentation

Capote

94

II

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1 Introduction

When

In Cold Blood

was first published, critics had a hard time categorizing the

book. Capote himself held that he had written a "nonfiction novel (Capote in Plimpton

1966: 2)" and that he had thereby created an altogether new genre. In the subtitle,

Capote stresses his central claim regarding this new genre, assuring the reader that what

she is about to delve into is "a true

account of a multiple murder and its consequences

(Capote 2000 [1966])." As will be seen in the opening chapter, criticism of

In Cold

Blood

has therefore to a great degree revolved around Capote′s and the book′s

adherence to this assertion of truth. The

Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on

Historical Principles (SOED)

lists as the three first entries under the head word "true":

true

/tru:/

1

Steadfast in allegiance, loyal; faithful, constant (...).

2

Honest, honourable, upright, virtuous; straightforward, sincere (...).

3

Of a statement, report, etc.: consistent with fact; conforming with reality (...).

The following investigation of

In Cold Blood

and of the biopic based on Capote′s work

on the book, Bennett Miller′s

Capote

(2005), will proceed along the lines of these three

aspects of the definition, questioning Capote′s claim of rendering a "true account."

The genre chapter and large parts of the ensuing discussion of

In Cold Blood

will be especially concerned with the definition′s third aspect,

In Cold Blood

′s

consistency with fact and its conformity with reality. The question will be raised as to

whether or not a true account of real events is possible at all, and in what ways Capote

and other writers of New Journalism, as the genre is most frequently called today, have

tried to achieve such true accounts.

The bulk of this paper will then deal with the way Capote sets up and brings

across what he calls the truth. In a close reading,

In Cold Blood

will be analyzed with

regard to its structure and language, followed by a close look at the book′s predominant

opposition of two prototypically American settings: the Clutters′ rural homestead and

the road. The road′s promise of freedom is reversed by Capote, who presents it as an

involuntary home for the Clutters′ murderers Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, two

"refugees of the American Dream (Zavarzadeh 1976: 122)." Capote′s way of portraying

these central protagonists, namely the Clutter family and the two criminals, will be a

further matter of discussion. It will be pointed out that Capote′s failure to include

himself as a character in the story is an obvious shortcoming of the book, considering

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that the author himself was one of the main protagonists of the story that unfolded in the

aftermath of the Clutter killings, and especially in regards to his prodigious claim of

truth.

The analysis of the individual characters of the Clutter family will also go into

the question whether their apparently ideal life is as perfect as it seems at first glance.

Special emphasis will be laid on the characters Nancy and Bonnie Clutter ­ on Nancy,

because she seems to be the epitome of the all American girl, and on Bonnie, because

she is the only family member who does not quite seem to fit into the society that

surrounds her. It will be seen that both characters have come to be and stay the way they

are because they are aware of the various constant gazes that rest upon them. The

analysis of Dick and Perry will illustrate and compare their underlying motives and

reasons for the killings in close connection with an analysis of their character traits and

their lives prior to the killings as presented in

In Cold Blood

. Animal and garden

imagery will be identified as themes and important tools for the author′s modeling of

his characters.

The American Dream is a further pervasive theme of

In Cold Blood

that will be

investigated. Although they do not necessarily realize it, for both the Clutters and their

murderers the pursuit of the riches the American Dream seems to have in stock is a

decisive driving force. It will be shown that the Dream keeps the Clutter family and

Dick and Perry maximally apart, leading to a catastrophic clash when the two ends of

the scale created by the Dream collide. Capote′s portrayal of the "truth" behind this

Dream, aspects of which have shaped much of American literature, will close the

discussion of

In Cold Blood

.

While questions regarding the truth value of

In Cold Blood

will be chiefly

concerned with the

SOED′s

third entry under the head word "true", the analysis of

Bennett Miller′s biopic

Capote

will investigate in how far Truman Capote manages to

stay true to himself and other characters, especially Perry Smith, in the first and second

sense of the

SOED

definition. In other words, it will assess to what extent Capote is

"loyal" to the people around him and to what degree his methods of retrieving crucial

information for his book project are "honest", "straightforward" or "sincere". Capote′s

relationship to Perry and his behavior in connection with him are most important in an

attempt at answering these questions and will therefore be analyzed in great detail.

However, Capote′s behavior towards other characters will be scrutinized as well in

order to gain an insight into the two sides that shape Truman Capote: Capote the author

and Capote the private man. The extreme conflict of interest that arises for Capote as a

2

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result of these two sides that pull him in opposite directions will be laid open, very

much in relation to the question whether Capote, as he is presented in the biopic,

actually has a chance of being true to himself, of living without betraying one of the two

sides that define him.

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2 Genre

2.1

Capote′s Literary Development toward the Nonfiction Novel

In Cold Blood

was not Capote′s first attempt at the nonfiction novel genre.

There had been four nonfiction or travel sketches prior to

In Cold Blood

:

Local Color

(1950),

The Muses Are Heard

(1956),

The Duke in His Domain

(1957) and the

posthumously published

Portraits and Observations

(2007) (cf. Hollowell 1977: 65).

Hollowell (Hollowell 1977: 66) contends that especially Capote′s work on

The Muses

Are Heard

, an account of his tour through the Soviet Union as a reporter with an all

African American cast of Gershwin′s

Porgy and Bess

, and his work on

The Duke in His

Domain

, a biographical sketch of Marlon Brando, who was still a young actor at the

time, constituted important phases in Capote′s professional life. During this time,

Capote strove to find the precise technique and style that would allow him to realize his

idea of the nonfiction novel, an idea he had harbored for more than 20 years (cf. Capote

in Plimpton 1966: 2). Much the way he would later handle

In Cold Blood

, Capote pays

close attention to the physical setting of the scenes he writes about in

Duke

and

Muses

;

he uses flashbacks and chapter overlapping; and while adhering to novelistic style, his

goal is to keep only to the facts (cf. Hollowell 1977: 66f.). His own definition of the

nonfiction novel would later state: "I was attempting to write a journalistic narrative that

employed all the creative devices and techniques of fiction to tell a true story in a

manner that would read precisely like a novel (Capote quoted in Dörfel 1973: 28)."

In a recent evaluation of

In Cold Blood′s

contribution to New Journalism, Nuttall

summarizes the state of American literature prior to the middle of the 1960s:

[The] post-World War Two American novel [...] was caught between the twin poles of neo-

fabulism and pulp fiction. [...] In 1966, the year

In Cold Blood

was published, these twin

poles might best be exemplified by, on the one hand, Thomas Pynchon′s reality-disconnection

tour de force

The Crying of Lot 49,

and on the other hand Jacqueline Susann′s raunchy

extravaganza

Valley of the Dolls

, a tale with little literary or other merit that ended up as the

second biggest-selling novel of all time. (Nuttall 2007: 130)

Capote seems to have shared this impression. Long after the publication of

In Cold

Blood

, Capote himself, in his foreword to

Music for Chameleons

, would also state as

one of the reasons for being drawn towards journalism: "it didn′t seem to me that

anything truly innovative had occurred in prose writing, or in writing generally, since

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the 1920s (Capote 1980: xiv)." The second reason he gives is that "journalism as an art

was almost virgin terrain, for the simple reason that very few literary artists ever wrote

narrative journalism, and when they did, it took the form of travel essays or

autobiography (Capote 1980: xiv)." In prior interviews, Capote had maintained that

"one of the reasons [he] wanted to do reportage was to prove that [he] could apply [his]

style to the realities of journalism (Capote in Friedmann 1968: 164)," and that "[it]

seemed to [him] that journalism, reportage, could be forced to yield a serious new art

form: the `non-fiction novel,′ as [he] thought of it (Matuz 1990: 84)." Capote saw the

nonfiction novel as result of a "need to escape [his] self-created world" in exchange for

"the everyday objective world we all inhabit (Plimpton 1966: 2f.)."

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2.2

The Nonfiction Novel ­ an Altogether New Concept?

Upon In Cold Blood′s entrance onto the literary scene few reviewers

acknowledged Capote′s creation of an entirely new genre. Dupee, for example, finds

that "[if] anything, Capote has perfected an old form of journalism and done so by

virtue of qualities peculiar to his subject and to himself (Dupee 1968: 71)," and Garrett

agrees that "[there] is nothing whatever new about the devices of fiction for `non

fiction′ (Garrett 1968: 90)." In fact, Capote′s claims would initially invite some very

harsh criticism. Bucco finds the term "nonfiction novel" to be "unfortunate,"

"contradictory" and "pretentious (Bucco 1966)." Others compare Capote′s new form of

art to "those special 3-pound weight classes which are staked out in boxing from time to

time to fatten the take: junior lightweight; senior bantham weight (Yurick 1968: 77)" or

ridicule it by saying that it is "[about] on the level of the `new, improved ingredients′

[...] in advertisements for toothpaste, detergents, deodorants, etc. (Garrett 1968: 91),"

the main reason being that there are a vast number of important works which predate

In

Cold Blood

and which are based around real events, often even based around real crime

stories. Hollowell, for example, denies that

In Cold Blood

establishes a new genre

because "it follows a well-established tradition (Hollowell 1977: 84)." Among his list of

antecedents are Stendhal′s

The Red and the Black

, Levin′s

Compulsion

, Dostoevsky′s

Crime and Punishment

, and Dreiser′s

An American Tragedy

. Parallels to the latter two,

above all to

An American Tragedy

, turn up in numerous discussions of

In Cold Blood

(cf. Kazin 1971, Phillips 1966, Pavlov 1967, Galloway 1968, Hollowell 1977, and

especially McAleer 1972). Others add more "immediate examples (Phillips 1966: 77)"

of true stories to this list:

The Possessed

,

Sons and Lovers

, or Poe′s

Mystery of Marie

Rogêt

. Bucco names Lillian Ross′s

Picture

, Ryan′s

The Longest Day

, and Hersey′s

Hiroshima

as instances of other "creditable jobs of journalism that antedate Capote′s

esthetic experiment (Bucco 1966)."

But, of course, Capote intends to offer more than

just a creditable job of journalism. Referring to Dreiser, Farrell and Algren, Yurick

launches a harsh attack against Capote, accusing him of not letting anyone else′s work

count (cf. Yurick 1968: 77). While all of the authors cited by the critics do base their

accounts on real events, none of them, as opposed to Capote, claim to adhere only to the

facts or to present the reader with

nothing but the

truth

.

In

Capote

, the most important biography on the author, Gerald Clarke expresses

his belief that with his claims of having invented a whole new genre Capote "did have a

case, though it might have been better if he had let someone else make it for him

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(Clarke 1988: 359)." In Dörfel′s view, the reception of Capote′s claims was problematic

because "scholarly criticism was prejudiced against the extravagant author (Dörfel

1973: 37)" who hosted lavish parties (cf. Rosenthal 1966: 72), whose works were

published with glamorous cover images1, and who was already a fully-fledged celebrity

after the enormous commercial success of his short novel

Breakfast at Tiffany′s

in 1959.

Galloway comes to a similar conclusion: "For many critics [...] stardom and

seriousness were an incompatible combination (Galloway 1986: 143)." Critics observe

that "[this] book [made] its appearance with all the rockets, whistles, and fireboat

fanfare usually reserved for the welcome of a brand new ocean liner on its maiden

voyage (Garrett 1968: 81)," and that "[people] talked about [the book] with excitement

in the way that people only talk about good new movies nowdays [sic] (Garrett 1996)."

Indeed,

In Cold Blood

was an immediate bestseller garnering more than two

hundred reviews in 1966 alone (cf. Stanton bibliography 1980). However, a good

portion of them called Capote′s success and his entire career "a product of the

publishing industry′s public relations machine (Kramer 1966: 18)." Crosby, a

contemporary who was working for the Observer, summarizes the critics′ scepticism in

an ironic comment:

[F]our year ago, this book was already being acclaimed a masterpiece. [...] Time and

again at parties I met people [...] who would tell me this book was the greatest

masterpiece of reporting since Thucydides; that the human heart was laid bare in a

manner unknown since Shakespeare. I would sit there hushed with admiration. `When did

you read it?′ I′d ask. Then I′d get a wounded look. `I haven′t read it.′ `Why not?′ I′d ask.

`Well, it′s not written. I mean Truman′s still working on it.′ [...] [The] fame of this then

unwritten and unnamed book rose and rose until everyone was talking about how

marvelous it was and what a breakthrough in literature. (Crosby 1966: 40)

One thing that becomes clear is that

In Cold Blood

is not easily classifiable.

Dupee simply dismisses the genre discussion and states that the novel is in a class of its

own; as are "certain of anyone′s favorite books ­

A Sentimental Journey, Walden

­ are

sui generis

(Dupee 1966: 3)." On most bestseller lists,

In Cold Blood

was listed as

nonfiction (cf. Phillips 1966: 77). In the Library of Congress system, it is placed under

nonfiction, in a category of "social pathology" including murder case histories. Yet

Levin′s remarkably similar

Compulsion

(1956) about a murder in the 1920s is placed

1 On the cover of

Other Voices, Other Rooms

, for example, Capote poses in a posture that has been

described as "reclining on a couch, fastidiously attired in a tattersall vest and black bow tie, blond bangs

dangling over his forehead, full lips moist and pouting (Norden 1987: 112)."

7

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