Five Stages of Grief

According to Elisabeth Kubler there are five stages of grief that most people experience when they lose a loved one or have to pass through a rough experience. The five stages consists of:

1. Denial
2. Anger
3. Bargaining
4. Depression
5. Anger 

In Cold Blood Nancy Ewalt finds the other Nancy dead and goes crazy. But still she is able to control herself and even go back into the house with the Sheriff. The Sheriff had never seen any of the Clutter´s family members, therefore he needed for someone to go in with him and identify each body. Just as the Sheriff says, “Is this Nancy Clutter? —he´d never seen the child before” (62). This, in my opinion, can be considered as one of the hardest tasks any one could pass through. Isn’t it shocking enough to know that an entire family has been murdered? What would it feel to see your loved ones dead covered with blood? As Capote states, “She´d been shot in the back of the head with a shotgun held maybe two inches away. She was lying on her side, facing the wall, and the wall was covered with blood” (62). I don’t even relate with Nancy Clutter, but I wouldn’t be able to see one of my friends lying dead on the floor. Was Nancy Ewalt still on the phase of denial where she still couldn’t believe they were all dead? 

As Capote keeps describing how each family member was found dead in different places I started thinking what each placed meant. At the same time I want to know why they were each shot at a different spot of their heads. Just as Capote describes, “…but she´d [Mrs. Clutter] had been shot point-black in the side of the head, and the blast—the impact—had ripped the tape loose” (63). Then he says, “…the one that looked must like himself [Kenyon]—even though he´d been shot in the face, directly, head-on,” and last, “But probably he was dead before he was shot. Or, anyway, dying. Because his throat had been cut, too”(64). What did Dick and Perry had against this family? It seems that they wanted for the Clutter´s to suffer before they died. If they had wanted them only to die they could have done it in a simpler way. Why go through all the trouble of tying them up and taping their mouths? There´s more to it than only death. Just like Nancy questions herself, “But why? To torture him? I don’t guess we´ll ever know. Ever know who did it, or why, or what went on in that house that night” (65).

Lets go back to the beginning of my blog where I stated the five stages of grief. From what I understood Nancy passed from denial straight to acceptance. Did she not care at all for the Clutter´s? All the time she was trying to prove herself that it just couldn’t be true, but she ends the chapter by saying, “They were dead. A whole family. Gentle, kindle people, people I knew—murdered. You had to believe it, because it was really true” (66). So she jumped straight from denial to acceptance. She never showed an act of bargaining or depression. Is she going to break up Elisabeth Kubler theory and create her own stages? 

Unpredictable War of Limitations

A Bright & Dark Day

The Clutter family has been murdered. I still don’t know exactly how they killed them, but so far I know that Nancy Ewalt found them dead. Capote explains how things seemed to be a little weird that day since things didn’t summed up for why they weren’t answering the phone or updating them with a change of plans. As Capote states, “If there was some change of plan, why, I’m sure they would have telephoned. Susan, why don’t you call the house? They could be asleep—I suppose” (59). He then describes how she called home and nobody answered, but at the same time it seemed as if their line had been cut off. He then states, “Nobody answered, so Mr. Ewalt suggested that we go to the house and try to ´wake them up´” (59). So first they didn’t answer the phone, they get to their house and all the cars are parked outside, they go in and it´s clear that they haven’t had breakfast, the curtains are closed, and then there´s Nancy lying dead on the floor. As he states, “We walked in, and I saw right away that the Clutter´s hadn’t eaten breakfast; there were no dishes, nothing on the stove. Then I noticed something funny: Nancy´s pursue. It was lying on the floor, sort of open” (60). 

Things just didn’t add up, the day they were describing was completely different from the previous days that Capote had described. This is probably a reason for why Capote was been so descriptive before. So that we could differentiate any other day from the day the Clutter family was murdered. For the first time while reading the book I feel that the descriptions he is giving us are useful. By the way the author emphasizes the word could in the first quote and uses some sort of quotation marks on “wake them up” it makes the audience believe that they all ready knew that something bad had happened. They just didn’t want to accept the truth. I guess they were afraid. 

Tragic, or scary, situations happen most of the time at night. Since during the day everything is bright and clear, while at night it is all dark and unclear. In Cold Blood is one of the few books I have seen that uses the daylight to uncover a murder. Also we tend to think that bad things only happen during the night, so if it weren’t for the unusual descriptions of Capote, I would have never imagined that that sunny day the Clutter family was found dead. Nancy states, “I was frightened, and I don’t know why, because it never occurred to me—well, something like that just doesn’t. But the sun was so bright, everything looked too bright and quite” (59). Nancy thinks just like me: bad things can’t happen during the day. Even though Nancy knew that something bad had happened to the Clutter´s she was afraid of uncovering the truth. Nancy discovers that the other Nancy was dead and goes crazy, and one paragraph later they are done describing the scene. REALLY? The book is finally on it´s turning point and Capote doesn’t spend more than one paragraph describing the scene. Is he coming back to it? Are the details from before the accident more important than from the ones on the day of the murder?
We can see how a sunny day turns into a dark one, not literally since the sun was still up by the time they discovered the dead bodies, but rather because a tragic situation was ruing the day and probably the rest of their lives. 

Psychology is Everywhere

We have all heard of the Joker, right? The bad guy of Batman. I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that he is not attractive at all and even scares the little kids to death (not literally). In Cold Blood, they describe Dick with deformities in his face. Here I can make a stereotype that all characters with an ugly face (in a scary way) are the bad guys. How come? This is probably because the audience is not going to sympathy with the ugly character, but rather with the handsome one, or normal one. What I’ve learned in my psychology class is that we are more likely to confine with the people that are attractive, but at the same time similar to use. Most of the world population is born like any other human, not with deformities in our faces. So it's clear that it is more likely for us to sympathy with "normal" characters than with the "ugly" ones. As Capote states, "It was a though his head had been halved like an apple, then put together a fraction off center" (31). That’s clearly a description of an ugly face, leading to my conclusion that all bad guys in books and movies are the unattractive. 

Now taking an extreme change of topic, I realized that Dick and Perry are really religious. Kind of ironic since they are the Clutter's killers, don't you think? They can't be religious as they kill others, since they are going completely against God believes. As they were going through shops to buy the necessary materials for their planned murderer they kept talking about the nuns. Dick came out of the store empty handed and Perry said to him, "Maybe it's just as well. Nuns are a bad-luck bunch" (46). With this statement we know that they are not religious at all, but two pages later we find a verse of a song called In the Garden. It states:

"And He walks with me, and He talks with me,

And He tells me I am His own,

None other has ever known..." (48).

Clearly the capital He is referred to God, so I find this contradicting to the previous pages. 

Also what I realized is that Capote has a different way of structuring his ideas. He alternates between each sub chapter to talk about the Clutters family and the next about Perry and Dick. So as he is describing the last days of the Clutters, at the same time he is explaining how Dick and Perry are planning the murder as well as giving us some backup information about their past lives. On page 30, Capote finishes the paragraph by saying, “Now, on this final day of her life, Mrs. Clutter hung in the closet the calico housedress she had been wearing, and put on one of her trailing nightgowns and a fresh set of white socks,” and he starts the next one with, “ The two young men [Dick and Perry] had little in common, but they did not realize it, for they shared a number of surface traits” (30). So far the whole book follows this pattern, still I believe it`s going to be broken once the Clutter family is dead.

New Interpretations

On my last blog I was wondering on why Capote gave the family such a big importance. And then BANG and answer popped into my head. We all know that six people are going to die. So far we have the Clutter´s family that sum up to six doesn’t it? Right there we have a connection: the Clutter family is going to die. What Capote probably wants is for us to connect and to relate to the family. This way we will get attached to them and sympathy for them. At the same time, I believe, he wants us to realize on the little things that pass right through us on a daily basis. I look back to my life and I realize that I don’t appreciate the things that I have, I’m not always grateful for all I have. Capote made me realize this when he states, “Now, on this final day of her life, Mrs. Clutter hung in the closet the calico housedress she had been wearing, and put on one of her trailing nightgowns and a fresh set of white socks” (30). Right there he wants us to feel pity for her and at the same time have us reflect about life. How do we know we are going to wake up tomorrow morning? How do we know we are not going to get in a car accident? We don’t. We can’t predict the future and that’s probably what Capote wants to tell us so far. If Mrs. Clutter would have known she was going to die next morning, would she had lived her day differently? I’m pretty sure she would have.

As I was reading this book I couldn’t keep thinking about Amish Grace, a novel by Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt, and David L. Weaver-Zercher that I read during the summer. It´s the story of a man that comes into a small school in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania and kills five innocent young girls. Not only did he kill the girls, but later took away his own life. What’s interesting about this novel is that it starts right away with the shooting. The authors don’t want us to sympathy with the families, yet more important they want to tell us the role this incidents play in our society.
We can see that they both have a similar topic, just a different way of approaching to them. Can’t wait to finish In Cold Blood to be able to determine which tactic I prefer.

New vocabulary:

Reticent: not revealing one's thoughts or feelings readily.

Summon: authoritatively or urgently call on.

Ludicrous: so foolish, unreasonable, or out of place as to be amusing; ridiculous.

Pheasant: a large long-tailed game bird native to Asia, the male of which typically has very showy plumage.

Sheaf: a bundle of grain stalks laid lengthwise and tied together after reaping.

Protégé: person who is guided and supported by an older and more experienced or influential person.

Gewgaw: a showy thing, esp. one that is useless or worthless.

Despondency: a state of low spirits caused by loss of hope or courage.

Why Family Unity?

So far I’m interested in the Truman Capote´s In Cold Blood book. I do have to admit that he is very descriptive and I want for him to get faster to the points. He uses narration and exposition to present the all of the members that make up the Clutter family. The author takes all of the first fifteen pages of the book to describe his family, I don’t know about you but I think that the family unity is going to have a huge impact through out the book. Why else will he spend so much time describing every trait of every member of the family? I’m really curious on what role is going to play Bonnie, Kansas, and the rest of the characters described.

What I found interesting was that as he described each member he was able show us that they all lived as a one and that they were self-sufficient. He states, “Other than a housekeeper who came in on weekdays, the Clutters employed no household help…” (9). On the other hand we can see how Mrs. Cluster was a psychiatric patient but the rest of her family members were taking physical care of her, as well as helping her maintaining a clean reputation. Capote states, “She was nervous, she suffered little spells-- such were the sheltering expressions used by those close to her” (7).  It seems to me that they have all the characteristics for having the base of a strong family. But, I ask myself again, why so much importance on family unity?