Susan Love For Nancy example essay topic

Life goes on in the book In Cold Blood. The author, Truman Capote, engages in an analysis of both the murderers and the people who surrounded the Clutter family. Capote goes through an intensive breakdown of the characters, clearly showing how each was affected as an individual by the events of November 15, 1959. The Clutter murders shocked the peaceful lives and futures of the residents of Holcomb County.

Susan Kidwell, Nancy Clutter's best friend, is affected in a very unique way. From the beginning chapters we see how Nancy confides everything with Susan. Capote allows us to feel their closeness as in page 21 we are carried into a conversation where they exchange secrets and dreams. This relationship explains Susan's reaction when she finds her best friend dead. When a neighbor, Nancy Ewalt, shouts that Nancy's dead, Susan turns offensive, "No, she isn't. And don't you say it.

Don't you dare". Susan love for Nancy does not allow her to realize that Nancy is really dead. She is so overwhelmed with the circumstances that she can't attend school until a couple days after the funeral. Mr. Ewalt recognizes this, "Susan never has got over it. Never will, ask me". This is proven true in the last section of the book.

Al Dewey finds Susan by the graves and she says, "I'm really happy... Nancy and I planned to go to college together. We were going to be roommates. I think about it sometimes. Suddenly, when I'm very happy, I think of all the plans we made". Although she experienced a tragic event, Susan is able to think back on Nancy and find happiness in the thoughts of the times they spent together.

The truth is that she never gets over it because Dewey asks about her, but she cannot go on without including Nancy in her life. Bobby Rupp also plays a major role in the life of Nancy Clutter. We can see how this is true because of all the pictures that Nancy has of Bobby. Bobby feels the same way toward Nancy. He too, like Susan, is unable to attend school for a while. It is very shocking to him to lose Nancy, not only because he has never lost anybody close to him, but also because he claims to have loved her.

Two months later after the murders, near Christmas time, he still remembers her. At mealtimes he is told again and again that he must eat. No one understands that he is ill, that grief has made him so, that grief has enclosed him in a place he cannot escape and others cannot enter; except possibly Sue. For a short while, Susan becomes his only companion, only she can understand who and what Nancy means to him. After a while together though, they are forcing each other to mourn and remember what they want to forget.

After that realization, both try to get on with their lives and stop seeing each other. This helps Bobby grow and, years later, leave town and get married. Alvin Dewey was affected in both his professional and family life. As soon as he is given the case, he lets it almost take control over him. He adopted a whole new attitude when he receives the case. It gets to the point that his mind automatically rejects problems not concerned with the Clutter case.

People ask him if he knows what he is making of himself and he replies by saying that the Clutter case is all he thinks about. His family life even becomes second to the case. When his phone rings constantly, he promises his wife that he will disconnect it. The hope that he might get another clue, though, leads him not to disconnect it. He finds himself lying to his wife, smoking, not getting enough sleep, lacking proper nutrition, and having to send his children away to his parents-in-law's house. The reader again sees the possessed Dewey when Marie gathers enough courage to ask him if they " ll ever get back to being a normal family.

He tries to answer and ironically is interrupted by another phone call. Capote shares with us that after everything has come to an end, although his dream did not come true, they are happy in a nice house near the city where all of his family feels safe. For a few months in the characters lives, the world stops turning. They are affected in serious ways. The murders did in fact change their lives and the outcomes of their futures. Life, however, still goes on, and the characters reach the same conclusion.