Of victims and victimizers in Truman Capote's In cold blood

Abstract

Capote arguably deploys a particular gay or oppositional vision through his non- fiction novel as a subversive counter-narrative. Given the fierce anti-queer sen timent consuming mid-century America and the subsequent stigma suffered by homos exuals, Capote, in In Cold Blood, first equates otherness with queerness in a wa y that his textually queer(ed) protagonist antihero, Perry Smith, becomes concep tually aligned with being an outside "other," castigated by the community on who se fringes he lingers. Accordingly, the non-fiction novel queers Perry Smith's p ersona in a way that reflects Capote's personal connection with him while creati ng extraordinary empathy with his character. Having provided this qualification or contextualization of the non-fiction novel as a gay text advancing Capote's o wn agenda, be it due to his own disenchantment with class-based politics from wh ich his own eventual plight originates, or otherwise, the thesis argues that Cap ote "queers" the non-fiction novel genre by using In Cold Blood as an instrument al counter-narrative, which in its queering and thus quasi-identification with t he "other" Perry Smith, critiques the appearance of pious innocence and self-rig hteousness of middle America's middle class and its social services and institut ions- the patriarchal family unit, religion, education, social welfare, and, as the official instigator of terminal violence, the legal and penal apparatuses of the state. Thus, the voice of this textually queered outcast, terminally silenc ed by the narrative of otherness scripted by the mainstream, is made audible by the counter-narrative in its critical approach to once-venerated social services and institutions that Capote presents as active "labs" (in)directly shaping Smi th's violent potential.