In cold blood book response

  In cold blood book response Essay 4 – IN COLD BLOOD For centuries psychologists and detectives have been trying to delve into the minds of murderers to determine what kind of person could commit such a horrific act. Films such as “Silence of the Lambs,” “Summer of Sam,” “Natural Born Killers” and the new “Jack the Ripper” focus not so much on how a murder took place, but why people kill. Is it something in their chemical makeup or genes that makes a person more apt to become a killer? Is society failing certain individuals? Or can one’s upbringing cause someone so much anger and pain that they lash out at innocent people? Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood examines the actual lives of two men accused of killing the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. Not only does he recount the events of that tragic night on November 15 when Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock murdered four members of the family, the author explores the lives of the two men to try to figure out why these two would commit such an act and whether society, in the form of readers, could have an sympathy for these two individuals who seemed to show no remorse. For this assignment, write a three to five page essay in which you decide whether Capote’s retelling of Smith’s and Hickcock’s lives does illicit some sympathy for either one or both of the killers through his style of writing. In other words, do you believe that Capote gives an unbiased account of the murderers’ lives or is does he show bias for one or both of the men, thus adding his own opinions in the nonfiction novel. In shaping your essay, keep in mind the language Capote uses when exploring the psychology behind Smith and Hickcock and the details he chooses to use to tell the biography of their lives. Even though the book is written in third-person omnicient, use sections/lines from the text to see if Capote slips his own viewpoints in and whether we are being manipulated as a result. Objective – to write an argument that makes a claim about a text, then supports that claim with specific examples from that text. ■ to use two or more outside sources from the internet or library that corroborate your argument ■ to use five verbals in your essay and underline them ■ to offer a strong conclusion in which you offer opinions/analysis based on your discovery