Significance of Citizens Distress

After word of the Clutter family murders spread throughout the town, as a reader of “In Cold Blood” you can clearly sense the sudden change in characters demeanors, actions, and overall views towards the town itself. I believe the Capote does this to ultimately show that “Things aren’t always as they seem.” In the beginning of “In Cold Blood”, the town in which the Clutters reside in seems to be a respectable one. Citizens seem to live in peace and harmony with one another without a single disturbance to alter the state of their neutral environment. But after these murders take place, the seemingly perfect “family oriented” society is disrupted and is thrown of balance. Everyone becomes suspicious of each other and ultimately people begin to feel less safe. People say things in disbelief like: “Everything Herb had, he earned with the help of God. He was a modest man but a proud man, as he had a right to be. He raised a fine family. He made something of his life. But that life, and what he’d made of it, how it could happen, Erhart wondered as he watched the bonfire catch. How was it possible that such effort, such plain virtue, could overnight be reduced to this – smoke, thinning as it rose and was received by the big, annihilating sky? (p.79).” This passage just shows how dismayed some people were after hearing the news. Their once safe and happy town became one filled with distress and worry.