Previous
Satire
Definition of Setting
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or it can be an imagined... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the city of New York, or... read full definition
Setting is where and when a story or scene takes place. The where can be a real place like the... read full definition
Part 1: The Last to See Them Alive
Explanation and Analysis:
In Cold Blood is set in various locations in the United States and Mexico between 1959 and 1965, beginning in the days before the murders of the Clutter Family and ending with the execution of murderers Perry Smith and Richard “Dick” Hickhock. Though In Cold Blood follows Dick and Perry as they travel to numerous cities, including Las Vegas, Miami, and Mexico City, its primary setting is Holcomb, the small town in rural Kansas where the Clutter murders took place. Capote describes Holcomb in the opening lines of the novel:
THE VILLAGE OF HOLCOMB STANDS on the high wheat plains of western Kansas, a lonesome area that other Kansans call “out there.” Some seventy miles east of the Colorado border, the countryside, with its hard blue skies and desert-clear air, has an atmosphere that is rather more Far West than Middle West. The local accent is barbed with a prairie twang, a ranch-hand nasalness, and the men, many of them, wear narrow frontier trousers, Stetsons, and high-heeled boots with pointed toes. The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive [...]
In his description of Holcomb, Capote emphasizes its rural, modest, Western character, describing it as a city that is “more Far West than Middle West.” He depicts its “hard blue skies and desert-clear air” as well as the Western attire favored by many of its residents, who are unassuming and informal despite the relative prosperity of the farming town. Throughout In Cold Blood, Capote contrasts the earnest, hard-working, and pious residents of Holcomb with the savagery of the Culler murders, which lead many locals to become increasingly paranoid and suspicious.
