In Cold Blood door Truman Capote

1.Write the plot.

Holcomb is a lonesome village in Western-Kansas.It is November 1959, 14 November to be precise. The Clutter family gets killed by a person or persons unknown. The next day the body of Nancy Clutter, the daughter of the family Clutter, is found. The police is called and the bodies of Mr and Mrs and Kenyon Clutter are found too. The two murderers leave Kansas and go to Mexico, but no-one knows that because the murderers then aren’t even found yet. Then a person, named Floyd Wells, passes information through to Al Dewey, who is put in charge of the case. He knows that Dick and Perry wanted to kill the Clutter family. Then they get caught, in Las Vegas. Dick’s interrogation starts, but he denies that he was one of the murderers. Perry denies too. The trial starts, but it is difficult to find a non-prejudiced jury. Eventually they both get death sentence.

2. Who is the main character? Is he/she a round or flat character? Write a description

There are two main characters, Dick and Perry. They are the two murderers of the Clutter family. There are also many other characters that appear in the book, but I think that they are the two most important, as they are responsible for the murders. They are both flat characters I think, as they collide with visions that you and I find normal, such as that it isn’t normal to murder.

3.Does the main character change in the course of the story i.e. are we dealing with character development.

I especially noticed character development with Perry, at the end he says that he is sorry for his behaviour and what he has done. Dick too has some development, although I don’t think that that is very clear. He wants to kill Perry later on in the story, because he is fed up with him. Because they used to be friends I consider this as a character development.

4.What is the point of view i.e. from whose point of view has the story been written, 1st person? 3rd person? What effect does this have on the story?

It has been written from both views. Most of the times it is the 1st person you’re dealing with, but there are also parts from where it has been written in the 3rd person. The effect on the story; sometimes it is a little bit confusing to recognise whether there is someone telling about his or hers own experiences or about someone else’s experiences. Also it sometimes lets you experience the story as if you are experiencing it yourself, and it also sometimes lets you look at what is happening from a sideline, more detached.

5.Choose a passage from the book which you think is really important. Explain your choice and write the down the first and last words and the page number. I’ve chosen this passage because I think that it is really important. In this passage the body of Nancy Clutter is found. This is very important because the book is about the murder of the family Clutter. Words: Go … dead. Pages: 57-58

6.Your opinion. Use at least 4 adjectives to express your opinion.

The book was very nice. Although it has been written quite some time ago, I think it is still a very good book to read and suitable to our time. The level of the English that is being used in the book is quite high too, maybe a little bit too high viewing from the point of our vocabulary. The book has been written in a difficult way, you get to know the story throughout many different views, which is confusing .