Truman Capote

 Literary element that describes the ways that the author uses words.  Author's word choice, sentence structure, figurative language, and sentence arrangement work together to establish:  Mood  Tone  Images  Meaning in the text.  Style describes how the author presents events, objects, and ideas.

 The style that an author uses influences how we interpret the facts presented.  Wording and phrasing tell us about emotions in the scene, the setting, and characters.  Example:  He's passed away.  He's sleeping with the fishes.  He died.  He's gone to meet his Maker.  He kicked the bucket.  The above sentences state the same idea in different ways.  Readers interpret emotions based on how words are phrased.

 Verisimilitude: literary tool used to make a story, even if it is real, seem more real.  Capote uses this literary tool to make it sound like he is present in the story.  How does he succeed? DETAIL.  Capote convinces us to believe his story by his constant use of detailed description.  Description lets us see the town in all its dusty glory; it makes us think we've seen Perry and Dick's faces up close; we lose sleep thinking about the bloody corpses in the Clutter house.  Extensive use of quotes from townspeople, investigators, family, and the killers also lends the book a strong sense of realism.

 Capote wrote it like he saw it.  Keeps himself out of the story.  Non-judgmental about the range of views and opinions expressed by his characters.  Capote’s seeming aloofness from what he's reporting allows him to report/repeat the most disturbing description and dialogue with no analysis, or commentary.  For example:  [Mrs. Kidwell] kept saying—but it was only later that I understood what she meant—she kept saying "Oh, Bonnie, Bonnie, what happened? You were so happy, you said it was all over, you said you'd never be sick again."  Capote is able to use the authorial remove of another person's voice to bring home the terror and hysteria.

 In Cold Blood: Four Parts broken into small sections or chapters  Chapters focus on different stories all happening at the same time.  Part One Example:  Capote switches from the Clutters to Smith and Hickock  Shows simultaneous actions of two separate parties  Allows the reader to see, “while the Clutters were doing this, the murderers were plotting this.”  Presents the idea that we go through life unaware of what could possibly be our fate.