Syntax

In Capote's novel In Cold Blood he uses syntax to convey his view of how Holcomb contrasts with itself and its surroundings. Initially, Capote's sentence structure is sophisticated, detailed, and complex when describing Holcomb"s surroundings. "The land is flat, and the views are awesomely extensive; horses, herds of cattle, a white cluster of grain elevators rising as gracelully as Greek temples are visible long before a travel reaches them." The very complax sentence shifts from a list of the surrounding landscape to a simile in one grammatically smooth moment. Also his use of semicolons and multiple commas emphasizes the sophistication of the sentence. After describing the surrounding area, Capote transitons to conveying the more unappealing and run-down aspects of the community. "The bank closed in 1933 and it is one of the town's two "apartment houses" ." The use of the quotations around "apartment houses" imply that Capote believes that they are poor imitaions of actual commercially successful apartment houses. The sentence is very dull and unemotional contrasting to the sophistication of the previous paragraph. After desbribing the dark side of Holcomb, a contrasting appealing aspect is noted. "the Holcomb School, a good-looking establishment, which reveals a circumstance that the appearance of the community otherwise camouflages : that the parents who send their children to this modern and ably staffed consolidated school...are, in general, a prosperous people." The paragraph in which this sentence is embedded is the beginning of the second shift, back into a more grammatically complex and sophisticated prose. Quotations are used again, but this time surrounding the word "consolidated"-implying that the school sees itself as superior to its surroundings. This is the final shift in the passage: from complexity, to simplicity and back to sophistication when describing the contrasting parts of Holcomb. In all, Capote's syntax shifts create more depth and provide insight into his view of Holcomb.