In his novel, In Cold Blood, Truman Capote vividly describes a to his readers the stereotypical small town life and terrain of Holcomb. He uses various rhetorical strategies, such as descriptive diction, detail about individual parts of town, and imagery to describe the atmosphere of this small western town. This allows the readers to feel as if they are actually there, in Holcomb, immersed in the small town culture.
In the first paragraph of his book, Capote starts by using incredibly descriptive diction in order to characterize the little town of Holcomb from a distance. He zooms out from all of the small town drama and gives the reader a scope of the landscape, painting a very familiar picture of the old west in our minds. Capote generously depicts the stereotypical western scene, as being.”flat,” and having,”views that are awesomely extensive; horses,” and “herds of cattle.” This description not only creates the setting in our …show more content…
He describes how quiet the terrain is by writing how he could hear,”the dry scrape of scuttling tumbleweed,” and, “ the racing, receding wail of locomotive whistles.” He uses such expressive imagery to reinforce how far out their town is from other civilization, which shows the reader how this secluded town makes the perfect place for a crime scene, because of how far out it is from direct punishment of the law.
Overall, Capote’s use of those three rhetorical devices allows him devise a very stale, and uneventful setting while also creating a very eerie mood, like in many thriller books, there is always a calm before the storm, or that sense that it is too quiet which gives the reader a sense that something bad is about to