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Representations of Law and the Nonfiction Novel: Capote’s In Cold Blood Revisited

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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique Aims and scope Submit manuscript

“I hadn’t invented anything” Truman Capote, Music for Chameleons [12, p. xvi].

Abstract

The article describes the way in which law-related events are represented in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. Based on a narrative analysis, the paper will posit that In Cold Blood played a particular role in originating and shaping an innovative mode of representing law-related events, a mode that was widely employed since, in various artistic mediums and in popular culture. As the paper further elaborates, Capote’s work paved new ways for challenging the conventional boundaries between “reality” and “fiction” with regard to the representation of law-related events. The paper will also maintain that in addition to its contribution to the law and literature discourse, In Cold Blood can be also seen as an early prototype to the digital legal spectacles that are now common. Revisiting In Cold Blood reveals not only its standing as originating model of many present-day cultural representations of the legal system in action, but also the essential difference between the almost unrestrainedly produced digital law-related content, to a artistic enterprise, characterized by poetic distinctiveness.

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Notes

  1. Richard Brooks' In Cold Blood (1967), and Jonathan Caplan's TV adaptation of In Cold Blood (1996).

  2. The film, directed by Bennett Miller, is based on Gerald Clarke Biography Capote [15].

  3. The film, directed by Douglas McGrath, is based on George Plimpton's book [28].

  4. Acknowledgment to In Cold Blood [13].

  5. For elaboration on the debate see: Algeo [1, pp. 75–79].

  6. Two seminal examples are Theodore Dreiser’s American Tragedy [19] and Richard Wright's Native Son [35]. For discussion of the genre see: Algeo [1].

  7. See, for example: Algeo [1, pp. 101–103], Clarke [15, p. 352] and Critics: Cold-Blooded Crossfire [17].

  8. Another option Genette mentions is the autodiegetic narrator, to designate the protagonist narrator; a narrator who is the main character of the story being told. For elaboration on Genette’s categorization narrators see: Rimmon-Kenan [30].

  9. For description of Capote’s efforts in this context see: Clarke [15, pp. 318–360].

  10. For elaboration on the role of judges as storytellers see: Almog [5].

  11. For elaboration of this paradigm, see Almog, Literature Alongside Law [4] and Almog, One Young and the Other Old [6].

  12. The film To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) directed by Robert Mulligan.

  13. In an interview he gave to Plimpton, Capote was asked what Lee's contribution to In Cold Blood was, and answered: “She kept me company when I was based out there… She went on a number of interviews; she typed her own notes, and I had these and could refer to them. She was extremely helpful in the beginning, when we weren’t making much headway with the town’s people, by making friends with the wives of the people I wanted to meet. She became friendly with all the churchgoers” [27].

  14. Atticus Finch, as brilliantly portrayed by Gregory Peck in the film adaptation, was voted as the greatest hero in American film [36].

  15. For elaboration on the effect of verisimilitude in film see: Almog and Ahronson [7].

  16. The cultural representations around Michael Jackson’s legal affairs is one striking example. For elaboration see: Almog [3, pp. 1–18].

  17. In this context see: Sherwin's illuminating work [32]. See also: Almog [3].

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  1. Faculty of Law, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, 31905, Haifa, Israel

    Shulamit Almog

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Almog, S. Representations of Law and the Nonfiction Novel: Capote’s In Cold Blood Revisited. Int J Semiot Law 25, 355–368 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-011-9231-z

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