Use of Language in In Cold Blood and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time

Both Truman Capote and Mark Haddon’s Novels; In Cold Blood and the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, are dominated by the unusual protagonists Christopher and Perry, who because of their good nature the audience are left with an emotion of sympathy and empathy towards them as they both experience heartache. Capote’s and Haddon’s purpose in creating this sympathy for the protagonists is to raise awareness for the misfortunate, such as the death sentence and the real-life ‘Clutter murder case’ in which Capote felt Perry had an unfair life and did not deserve the death sentence. His novel depicts Perry as an unusual protagonist; as he is a mass murderer, yet has been displayed as a good guy with a kind heart. Haddon has also used his unusual protagonist Christopher, who the outside world often sees as an antagonist due to their misperception of his actions and his Asperger’s, yet for the audience he is an unusual protagonist as Haddon has wrote the entire novel in the first person with free indirect style so we can better understand why he does what he does, developing sympathy for him, Haddon’s purpose is also to raise social awareness for the misfortunate, so the reader can have a better understanding of people with Asperger’s.

Within the curious incident, antagonists and protagonists have been displayed, in the Father-son relationships, yet often characters switch between them. Christopher has been portrayed as the underdog between him and his father’s relationship, an example of when this is shown is when the Father tells Christopher in the middle of an argument “look at me when I’m talking to you”, this imperative shows that the father is telling Christopher to do something, he is controlling his actions because he has dominance over him, meaning the audience know who is in control and who has more authority over who. However, this is not always, for example when Christopher has control over his father’s right to see him, when the Father tried multiple times to see his son, after Christopher ran away, Christopher would shut him off by telling his Mother “I don’t want to talk to father”, this short declarative is effective in this situation as we the audience felt as Christopher’s father was the protagonist and Christopher the antagonist, as the formation of deeper empathy for the father, when we see him being shut off by his own son. However, his father often displays aggressive dominance, when the father discovers Christopher’s book about the murder of the dog he displays to the audience what seems as irrational anger “Holy fucking Jesus. How stupid are you?” This rhetorical question emphasises his anger towards Christopher, as the audience know not only does Christopher very much dislike being yelled at, but also does not understand rhetorical questions because of his Asperger’s, which will only greater confuse and upset him. The noun phrase “Jesus fucking Christ” with the interjection of the colloquial taboo modifier “fucking” and the father’s patronizing voice of authority dramatizes the noun phrase creating this clear idea of who is the antagonist and who is the protagonist. Haddon wants the audience to understand Christopher’s feeling more, so the audience see it from Christopher’s point of view, to create a more intimate relationship between reader and Christopher. This effect that some characters switch between protagonist and antagonist is in order to view the situation in more emotional depth (feeling sympathy for Christopher when his book is found and resentment towards the father), and when we have emotional understanding towards Christopher we do not view him as the novels ‘bad guy’.

Within In Cold Blood the father-son relationship displayed is between Perry smith and his father, The relationship is shown as dysfunctional within Chapter 2 Perry and his Father get into a physical fight, something which Christopher also experiences when his Father hits him, but nothing as extreme. The fights starts of as “Dad snatched a biscuit out my hand, and said I ate too much, what a greedy selfish bastard I was” Perry’s voice is in direct speech is reporting his Fathers hurtful and scarring adjectives and taboo noun insulting him, this causes the reader to feel more emotionally connected to Perry as he is using 1st person direct speech. The reader understands in more depth the reason to Perry’s psychological complexity, which humanizes him, creates sympathy and viewing him more as the protagonist. Capotes purpose of this similarly with Haddon’s purpose, is to greater understand Perry as a protagonist. Both Haddon and Capote have used Characters Perry and Christopher to directly speak in 1st person so the audience feel a closer connection and understanding towards them, to achieve the purpose of us feeling sorry for them when something inevitable bad happens to them.

Often within In Cold Blood and Curious Incident, the characters Perry and Christopher are seen as and sorrowful and sad, creating this effect that they are weak, and weak sad people often do not carry connotations with an antagonist, but usually creates compassion and empathy for them, which has connotations with a protagonist. We feel sad often for both the characters as they experience not only physical pain but also emotional, and often their emotional distress is so high it causes them physical agony. A case to when this is shown for Christopher is when he feared being caught by the police when he ran away, “The feeling like a balloon inside my chest. It hurt”, this simile emphasises our view that Christopher is the innocent protagonist to who we feel sorry for, one because of the simple high frequency lexis used within the first-person narrative, and especially the short sentence “It hurt.” which carries aspects to how a child would speak which carries connotations of innocence. Also, the audience are aware Christopher is a good person so when we see him in distress it causes us distress. Correspondingly within In cold blood, Perry also suffers from physical pain when feeling nervous, that his legs ache whenever he is feeling anxious, so much so that he has fallen addicted to aspirin “three aspirin, cold root beer and pall mall cigarettes…a proper chow down”. When Perry is being interviewed about the murder he becomes increasingly nervous which is shown through action “Smith swallowed. He began to rub his knees” and asks, “You got aspirin? They took away my aspirin”. The interrogative and declarative further conveys Perry’s pain and desperation for the aspirin, as he feels the need to follow up his question with an immediate reason, to enhance his chances of getting some aspirin. Both Capote and Haddon have used the correlation between physical pain and emotional pain to further portray Perry and Christopher as pitiful, to allow them to be viewed as less of an antagonist and more of an unusual protagonist, to further develop their purpose of attaining the readers understanding of Perry and Christopher and acknowledging them as somewhat gentle, good characters.

Both Capote and Haddon displayed through direct speech that Perry and Christopher have a slight misconception, uncomfortability and general uninterested in sex. The lack of sexual desire they have in comparison to those closest to them, Father and Dick, who’s sexual interests or even just normal sexual desire has affected their lives but also displayed them as more mature. Whereas Perry and Christopher’s lack of sexual desire carries connotations of innocence or even purity. An example of this In cold blood is that Perry often mentions he 'cannot stand people who cannot control them self’s sexually', by this he means 'rape', 'queer stuff and 'bothering kids', as he mentions vaguely in a undirected way, due to trauma, that he was often abused and raped as a child by queer men in the navy and army, “But a lot of queens aren’t effeminate…they get together and gang up on you, and your just a kid. It can practically make you want to kill yourself”. Queens is a 1950s American colloquial term for Gay men, and how he explains that they can be strong, and that them “ganging up” on him made him want to kill himself, shows the reader an implied situation of rape without directly saying it, for a young boy to be trapped on a navy boat with men who would abuse you, would be beyond traumatising, the readers know this and the 1st person narrative creates a more intimate connection between the reader and Perry and the readers have more understanding to why he then behaves the way he does, and can understand that this kind of trauma can ultimately lead to something like a murder when being mixed with the wrong people (Dick). Perry has never shown any signs of having sexual interests, and even called it a 'nuisance' when Dick is having sex with a Mexican women in the same room, the readers are left with the presumption that Perry is A-sexual, due to his traumatic childhood experiences, his lack of sexual desire, sympathy that he was raped, and his morally right attitude with sex (stopping Nancy’s rape and being against paedophilia) all allows the readers to view him as more kind hearted, and shows him as more human with genuine psychological emotions and suffering instead of a demonised killer, and most importantly as the protagonist when in comparison to Dick, the man whom in complete contrast with Perry cannot control himself sexually, is a rapist and paedophile, Dick because of this has a strong depiction of the antagonist and has a un-relatable and un-friendly approach.

Whereas Christopher is ignorant to what sex is, unlike Perry who knows too well what it is. Christopher’s innocent ignorance of sex has been shown through direct dialogue when conversing with Ms Alexandra and learning about his mother’s affair, she tells him 'your mother was very very good friends with him' Christopher not understanding her hints of sex, he response 'I know' to which she says, 'I mean that they were very good friends, very very good friends' Her avoidance to say the word sex or even affair, emphasises that even other characters are aware of Christopher’s lack of understanding of this, to which Christopher eventually replies 'do you mean they were doing the sex', Christopher calling sex 'the sex' this high frequency lexis and misuse of wording conveys humour for the readers thus emphasising how much they like and sympathise with him, as they truly view him as an innocent child in this moment. Unlike Perry who’s sympathy of sex stems from a un-humour’s and sad story on how he was raped and abused as a child, although both Capote and Haddon have portrayed their characters with these attributes to portray them as more human, in order to stronger emphasise them as unusual protagonists.

In conclusion, Capote and Haddon have used linguistic and language features, such as grammar, point of view and dialogue to portray the Characters Perry and Christopher as unusual Protagonists to who the readers sympathise with, with the use of dominance of other characters (Dick and Father), physical and emotional distress and the innocence of sex to further enhance their readers to feel sympathy and like the characters in order that they may not judge Perry as much as Dick within the real life murder clutter case, and to have more compassion for those with Asperger’s.