In Cold Blood Themes

When Truman Capote left for Kansas, his original plan was to write about the effect on a small, rural town of a brutal killing. It was only when he got there that the murderers were caught—major...

Holcomb and surrounding towns may have been ethnically diverse, but as far as religion is concerned, they look very homogeneous—100% Christian. But as we learn from In Cold Blood, the townsfolk m...

Well, it is 1959, and it is Bible-belt Kansas—the ultimate family-values setting. So we have to expect that there are some seriously traditional views about what it means to be a man in that soci...

Women in 1950s Holcomb were subject to the same sex-role constraints and expectations as men—they were traditionally homemakers and mothers. But many of the women in In Cold Blood seem to have fr...

The nuclear family was the bedrock of society in Holcomb and Garden City. But In Cold Blood contains many examples of families with different situations and suggests that families aren't always det...

If there's one central question in In Cold Blood, it's "Why did they do it?" Here's why: Brain damage. Or is it mental illness? Maybe it's childhood abuse, unemployment, abandonment, parents that w...

Capote seems to challenge the readers to decide if Perry and Dick are mentally ill, and if this was what made them do what they did. In In Cold Blood, They both have "spells" where they pass out or...

You make plans, right? Even as you're reading this, you're probably deciding about whether to watch "The Office" reruns before or after you finish that essay on "Sociopathic Personality Disorder in...