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.