A Study On Reification Represented In In Cold Blood

Truman Capote is an outstanding writer in the contemporary American literature. His In Cold Blood is regarded as the first nonfictional novel in both America and Europe, which arouses worldwide attention of the public and critics. The total disillusionment with the American Dream is the social theme of the novel, which reflects the conflict between material interests and emotion. In the novel, Capote vividly depicts Clutter family and Smith family to show the condition of the middle and lower classes in America during1950s. On the pursuit of the American Dream, the Clutter family’s success and the Smith family’s misfortune form stark contrast. To get the safe in the Clutters’s house, Perry Smith and Richard Hickock conspire together and kill the family. To explore the social factors behind the tragedy, this thesis employs Marxist approach:the concept reification.Reification is gradually evolving from the ideological criticism of commodity fetishism. The introduction, development, and extension of reification occur in certain historical context and social conditions. The thesis employs it to analyze the reification between individuals and object, the reified interpersonal relations and the individual’s self-reification in the novel In Cold Blood. This developmental logic not only expresses Capote’s reflection and critique towards American middle-class moral values, but also implies his deep concern of the phenomena of reification in the American society.This thesis can be divided into five chapters. Chapter One introduces the author Truman Capote and his works, research review of In Cold Blood, and the theoretical framework of the thesis. Chapter Two concentrates on the reification between individuals and object. First of all, it analyzes the positive effect of the American Dream, through the pursuit of which the Clutter family become rich from rags. It also reflects the buoyancy of American people in the affluent society in the1950s. Then, through lots of details of the text, this thesis illustrates the negative impact of the American Dream on Smith’s family. Driven by the propaganda of the American Dream, they develop excessive fascination and fetishism of commodity and become the slaves of commodities. Chapter Three focuses on the reified interpersonal relations. It attaches great importance to estranged family members and indifferent neighbors of the Clutters and the Smiths. In addition, the cause of Perry Smith’s being a social outcast is studied. Chapter Four mainly analyzes the self-reification of Perry Smith and Richard Hickock through three aspects:Perry Smith’s fantasies about money, his fantasies about salvation through an imagined parrot, Richard Hickock’s habit of theft and paedophiliac tendency, and the two’s cold-blooded murder of the innocent Clutters for money. Finally, this thesis draws readers’ attention to the value of in Cold Blood in the intellectual history. It fully demonstrates the tendencies of people’s being reified in the capitalist society of America in1950s and1960s. It is through describing the murderer Perry Smith’s downtrodden family with sympathy that Capote expresses his call for the middle and lower classes of the American society to ponder on reification in the material society.