I think that Truman Capote makes a point to show how the murders caused fear and suspicion between old friends in the Holcomb community. He says that the average reaction of a person in the town after hearing about the crime was “amazement, shading into dismay; a shallow horror sensation that cold springs of personal fear swiftly deepened” (70). He quotes a Mrs. Hartman when she says, “They [the Clutters] were about as popular as a family can be, and if something like this could happen to them, then who’s safe, I ask you” (70)? The Clutters were very well liked in the community, aside from certain jealousies. It is obvious that Mr. Clutter was seen as a leader among other men, that Bonnie was pitied but liked, and that the children (especially Nancy) were seen as almost perfect. The fact that a family as popular as the Clutters could be hated enough to be murdered caused the rest of Holcomb to fear unobserved hatred for their own families. Mrs. Hartman then quotes an old man of Holcomb: “All we got here are our friends. There isn’t anything else.” She comments on this, saying “In a way, that’s the worst part of the crime. What a terrible thing, when neighbors can’t look at each other without kind of wondering” (70)! Truman Capote notes how the small size of Holcomb causes it to be almost overlooked by the rest of the world. This causes the townspeople to think that the murderers were their very own neighbors! When a horrible thing happens in a very close-knit and friendly community, I think it is important that the population can come together in grief and comfort each other. However, Capote shows how tragedy can also threaten to tear a community apart. As the story unfolds, I’m interested not only in the reasoning behind the murders, but also in how it will affect the people of Holcomb.
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This is more based on how Holcomb is described as a whole, not the affect the murder has.
ReplyDeleteThroughout the first part of the book, it is clear that Capote tries to show the reader just how miniscule the "community" of Holcomb really is. On the first page he calls Holcomb, "out there"(1), and goes out of his way the rest of first part of the book to show that Holcomb has no resources, skills, personality or, after the murders, hope. His description of Mrs. Truitt, the oldest "lifer" of Holcomb, comes off extremely depressing.
"Them days we called this place Sherlock. Then along this stranger. By the name of Holcomb...What did he do? Sold out. Moved to California. Not us. I was born here, my children was born here."
Mrs. truit sounds more crazy and stubborn than loyal to her hometown. I think Capote was trying to prove a key point in his story through his desolate description of Holcomb. Capote wrote about such a brutal murder with seemingly no intention, that it would appear this could never happen in America. Not only did it happen in America, it happened in the most blandly described town in which the streets are, "unnamed, unshaded and unpaved". Capote is trying to show that this is a turning point for America. The "heyday" of the 1950's came to a brutal end and soon were the turbulent times of the Vietnam war, civil rights and protests. Capote is trying to say that America isn't safe, even in the smallest, simplest town.
The murder of the Clutter family is the turning point in instantaneous failing trust. Their tight-knit community began falling apart as soon as the news of the killing was spread. All of the people begin turning on one another and suspecting others, not wanting to turn their backs. The sense of trust and safety is lost and the community loses their closeness to one another through blame and suspicion. The woman working in the mail office snarls upon hearing the news, “If it wasn’t him, maybe it was you. Or somebody across the street. All the neighbors are rattlesnakes. Varmints looking for a chance to slam the door in your face” (69), and later, Mrs. Hartman states, “All we’ve got out here are our friends…. What a terrible thing when neighbors can’t look at each other without kind of wondering” (70)! The sense of security in the small town of Holcomb has been completely upturned.
ReplyDeleteAlso, like Hannah said, the fact of the “perfect” Clutter family being a target, made the rest of Holcomb fearful for themselves because they didn’t nearly measure up to that family. Mrs. Hartman states, “But who hated the Clutters? I never heard a word against them; they were about as popular as a family can be, and if something like this can happen to them, then who’s safe, I ask you” (70)? This idea of safety, which was never before a problem, has now become an issue. People didn’t even lock their doors it was such a protected, sheltered place, and I get the feeling that from this point in time on, they definitely will every night.
This murder causes unrest throughout all of Holcomb. I’m curious to see if anything happens of it, where people won’t help one another, or people actually begin to blame and accuse families. I think it could be the beginning of a very disjointed community and I’d be curious to see what sparks from it.
While I believe that the murders had a vast impact on members of the Holcomb community, I consider it to be attributed to the fact that they believed that the Clutter family was faultless. However, the Clutter family, in the descriptions made by Capote, was anything but perfect. There were internal conflicts between family members, and internal conflicts within themselves. For example, Nancy was a hard working, and over-achieving individual, but her work load was obviously stressful. Her duties were listed “…still be a straight-A student, the president of her class, a leader in the 4-H program and the Youth Methodists League, a skilled rider, an excellent musician…an annual winner at the county fair…” (18). As shown here, Nancy had many responsibilities to live up to, which proved to be very demanding. The strain appears to be furthered as she deals with her fathers concern about her relationship with Bobby. Nancy wants to make her father happy by distancing herself from Bobby, but inside she does not want to. Although Nancy appears to the community as perfect, she has to deal with the strain of her duties, and the demands of her father. Along with Nancy, Mr. Clutter has issues of his own. He strives for excellence in every aspect, which results in neglect of his family. Kenyon is also victim to these presumptions. He was quiet, but intelligent, leading the community to believe that he was like the rest of the Clutters, perfect. On the contrary, Kenyon was the classic fifteen year old boy struggling with himself to discover his place within the world. He appears to have lived in Nancy’s shadow, and wanted to live up to her measure of excellence, but was incapable of doing so. The Clutter family, as depicted by Capote, was far from the picture perfect view that the community understood them to be.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Hannah and think that Capote is trying to demonstrate how one catastrophe can destroy a whole entire community. Continuing on in the reading for section two this becomes more apparent as section two goes on. The very first encounter of this “change” in Holcomb is Alfred Stoeckein, trying to defend himself against people’s accusations that him and the Mrs. had not heard the gun shots, he says, “[he wishes] folks would stop yappin’ and try to understand…[why he and his wife…had heard] nary a nothin” (78). So we find out that right off the bat people in Holcomb start to accuse the neighbors, even though they probably wouldn’t ever expect them to do such a thing. But even Mr. Stoecklein and his wife are feeling eerie about the Clutter’s murder because Mr. Stoecklein says, “we’re movin’ to a house alongside the highway”(79). Mr. Dewey’s conversation with his wife also helps to depict the fear in Holcomb’s community: “Not a thing, she assured him. Only, when you come home tonight, you’ll have to ring the bell. I’ve had all the locks changed. Now he understood, and said, don’t worry honey. Just lock the doors and turn on the porch light. After he’d hung up, a colleague asked, what’s wrong? Marie scared? Hell, yes, Dewey said. Her, and everybody else”(87). So here the Dewey’s are scared and everyone else is scared, to even follow this up that everyone is scared a proprietor of one of the hardware stores said, “Locks and bolts are the fastest-going item”(88). Furthermore Capote kind of gives us deep clues that the city will never be the way it once was, seemingly perfect, because Capote talks about the city as it was before “attractive tree-filled square” and he talks about it nowadays “quite subdued” and as “once a rather raucous frontier town”. I think that he’s leading us to think that there will never be the same Holcomb that there once was. The final thing in my reading that really led me to believe that Holcomb will never be the same was the un-answered question of Mrs. Dewey: “Alvin, answer me. Do you think we’ll ever have a normal life again? He started to reply, but the telephone stopped him”(105). This question is never answered and personally I think that Capote won’t answer the question because, at least as we saw in the film for him, his life never was the same after this and I think he may be using the town to literally reflect the effect of the murder on the town, but also he is using the town to reflect the effect of the murder on Capote himself.
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