Elegantwoe Deconstructing The Binaryopposition Of Goodand Evil Of In Cold Bloodandthe Devilinthe White Citybasedon Greek Tragedy Theory

Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White Cityprovide accounts of brutalmurders.The murderers in these novels are outsiders of society,representing the dark side of the community.Many scholars have studied Truman Capote and Erik Larson’s novels,but none have conducted a serious study discussing Capote and Larson’s books from the perspective of Greek tragedy.This thesis explores the representation of the good and evil binary through the analysis of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City.Meanwhile,thethesis illustrates how Capote and Larson use Greek tragic conventions such as hamartia,anagnorisis,catharsis,andchorus to indicate that their nonfiction novels share many features with Greek tragedy.Based on Greek tragic elements,these two novels demonstrate how the authors treat different manifestations of evil.Two authors express that if we continue to robotically characterize men as either good or evil,we will lose empathy.As a famous non-fiction writer,Capote has great influence on Larson who wants to create a novel similar to In Cold Blood.This thesis aims to demonstrate that two writers have analogous views about good and evil.From thoughts of two authors,they think that our traditional judgment of good and evil is too absolute.So the thesis focuses on exposing how the authors take advantage of the Greek tragic structure to knit the novels and deconstruct the binary opposition of good and evil eventually.In the first three parts,the thesis mainly introduces common remarks of two novels and principal literary theories.Truman Capote and Erik Larson are liable to build conventional concepts in their novels and find out its weak spots,which represents a kind of critical spirit.The thesis focuses on the process of deconstructing the binary between good and evil.