From f3df6e1a306cd535e3643bbbda640d29a6094fd2 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Andrew Lorimer Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2018 09:48:13 +1100 Subject: [PATCH] initial cold blood notes --- english/cold-blood.md | 67 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 67 insertions(+) create mode 100644 english/cold-blood.md diff --git a/english/cold-blood.md b/english/cold-blood.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0449998 --- /dev/null +++ b/english/cold-blood.md @@ -0,0 +1,67 @@ +# *In Cold Blood* - Truman Capote + +## Setting + +**What does the setting of the text include?** + +- cultural information - America, small isolated community, agricultural economy, 1959 +- explicit mention of dates to set period (Nov 14, 1959) +- Holcomb, Kansas - small town, "not a place that strangers come upon by chance" +- introduction to characters - family interactions/relationships +- integration of events & people to describe culture/period/location +- "hip-high, sheep-slaughtering snows" - harsh weather +- description of clothing - "narrow frontier trousers, Stevensons, and high heeled boots" +- description of accent - "the local accent is barbed with a prairie twang" +- landscape - dusty, dry flat, vast +- low population +- "few Americans [..] had ever heard of Holcomb" +- dilapidated buildings, uniform through town + +**How do the setting and events work together?** + +**Foreshadowing** + +p 25, 41, 52, 63, 67 + +- chapter titles - "the last to see them alive" etc +- not going to church +- ambiguous implications +- “Chinese elms had turned into a tunnel of darkening green” (leading up to Clutters' house) +- “until one morning in mid-November of 1959, few Americans [..] had ever heard of Holcomb” +- Herbert “headed for home and the day’s work, unaware that it would be his last” +- “if Dick had not hammered home the every-minute importance of the next twenty-four hours” - Dick and Perry planning +- “the only sure thing is every one of them has got to go” - Dick +- “four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives” +- “Only now when I think back, I think somebody must have been hiding there. Maybe down among the trees. Somebody just waiting for me to leave” +- dual narrative in chronological order approaching murder +- - create a sense that the narrative will "collide" +- - different settings, same time + + +## Characters + +### Herbert Clutter + +- owns River Valley Farm +- four children - two daughters + Nancy + Kenyon +- successful - owns large property +- "I'm not as poor as I look" + +### Nancy Clutter + + +### Kenyon Clutter +- 15 +- builds stuff + + +### Dick Hickock + +- murders Clutter with Perry Smith + +### Perry Smith + +- murders Clutter with Dick Hickock +- breakfast - "three aspirin, cold root beer and a chain of Paul Mall cigarettes" +- self-centred/egotistical - “Every time you see a mirror you go into a trance” +- more open/prominent in text than Dick -- 2.43.2