The Eeriness of the Future

A pattern that adds to the eeriness of the novel is the constant references to the future. The reader knows from the title of the book that the main characters are going to be killed in the near future. The constant allusion to each person’s plans for the future helps intensify the dramatic irony of the story, thus causing the reader to feel somewhat uncomfortable. When first describing Mr. Clutter, capote ends the passage by writing, “he headed for home and they day’s work, unaware that it would be his last” (13). When read, the audience feels the desire to intervene and stop what is going to happen to Mr. Clutter, but knows that there is nothing that can be done to prevent the murder. By writing this one sentence, Capote instantly engages the reader emotionally. Another instance that compels the reader to feel for the Clutters is when Bonnie informs Mr. Clutter that “the source of her misery, so medical opinion had at last decreed, was not in her head but in her spine—it was physical, a matter of misplaced vertebrae. Of course she must undergo an operation, and afterward—well, she would be her ‘old self’ again” (7). The audience instantly commiserates with Bonnie because she will not have the chance to live a normal life after ending the painful era she just experienced. Because Capote has such a tight grip on the readers’ emotions, he is able to make the story as vivid as it can possibly be.