What an Ordinary Town

According to Truman Capote, Holcomb, Kansas is a pass-over town. No one knows

about this town and Capotes skill at creating an eerie and deserted mood clearly shows the
diction within the piece. Capote expresses his view of Holcomb with elaborate structure that
brings the reader on an imaginative ride through his thoughts. Beginning with a birds eye view
of the boring town, Capote brings the long coming suspense to the reader in the final paragraph.
In the excerpt, Capotes choice of diction helps the reader glimpse his view of Holcomb,
Kanas. By reading multiple negative phrases like aimless congregation, Haphazard hamlet,
and irrelevant sign, clearly shows that Capote sees the town as insignificant and quite boring.
To strengthen his opinion father, Capote continues to paint a picture of this dull town by saying,
the streets, unnamed, unshaded, unpaved. Capote excels at creating a dreary scene, and the
readers fall for it easily. Behind his careful, uninterested tone he plants a small seed of suspense.
Surely a town with a school that is considered a good-looking establishment, compared with
the rest of the town, must stick out. With his intelligent word choices, Capote creates an
underlying foreshadowing of this too new and too expensive school in the middle of boring
Holcomb.
After describing a town that already seems quite unusual to the reader, Capote backs up
his underlying suspense with the structure of his excerpt. The fancy school is described as ably
staffed although the town has such a small population. The structure Capote uses is unique to
him alone and is quite attention-getting. By starting the excerpt off as uninteresting, Capote
really catches the reader off guard as he begins to zoom in for a closer look at the town. Only
then does the reader learn of this too nice school and prosperous people. The reader is taken
aback by learning that this seemingly poor town actually is quite wealthy. Now seeing anything
is possible for this quirky town, the reader is open to everything that they may read. Within the
last paragraph, the structure allows the reader to grasps that something very serious has occurred
in Holcomb. Leaving the reader with until one morning Capote instills a sense of dread in
the reader. Not only has he created a very good hook, he has created chills that his audience will
not soon forget.
Emily Preti