Between Fact And Fiction

Hayden White once asserted that history does not only refer to the object we research orour research on it, it should also refer to a kind of relationship between the written words andthe past. The new historicists think that history is a text, because in their opinion, history is adescription of the past events, and this kind of description is not purely objective, but areconstruction and creation of the events by language, which is full of the language users’explanation and subjective creation for the events. In other words, history is neither anobjective record of the historical facts, nor the simple documentary of the past events.This thesis uses new historicism to interpret Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood. It tries tofind out the fictionality in the non-fiction novel and how Capote selected and arranged thematerials in order to turn the blooded murder into a glamorous art. In addition, this thesisstudys the social embededness in the book, including why the two killers committed thecrime and the social problems covered under the objective narration.The thesis consists of five parts. The first part discusses the research background,literature review, basic theories of new historicism and also introduces the book—In ColdBlood and its author Truman Capote.The second part mainly analyzes the fictionality in the book, which includes fictionalevents and scenes, to show the textuality of history.The third part analyzes Capote’s creative treatment for the raw materials. It will focus onCapote’s selection and arrangement with the materials, which make the blooded murder caseinto a charming book. This part make readers explore the relationship between fact andfiction, history and literature, to think about the boundary of art and the real world.The forth part analyzes the social embededness in the book. It mainly discusses thesocial background, and why the two killers committed the crime, and social reality hiddenbehind the brutal murder.The last part is the conclusion. In this part, the author summarizes the whole study,including the findings and some expectations for the correlational research in the future.