Truman Capote: A Man Scarred by his Past

Truman Capote can be defined as a man of great personality and vibrancy. His colorful
character affected not only his writing but his fame was as well. Capote’s peculiar childhood and homosexuality caused the themes of his work to follow a common thread; Capote often wrote about loneliness, loss of innocence, and the power of love. Through looking at Capote’s life, one can see why Capote was so fascinated with these topics. Capote’s writing is often known for having two sides, a dark and disturbed side generally seen in his early fiction, and a lighter side. His lighter side can be seen in his novels and novellas like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, where he highlights the life of parties and glamour, while his darker side comes to the surface in his most noted novel In Cold Blood. Capote’s dark side of writing often depicts a lost and lonely character; much like Capote was himself as a child. In his lighter works, Capote’s ephemeral life of fame and fortune mirrors the animation and energy of his characters.
In his short stories, Capote follows the same routine; often his stories chronicle the happy and extravagant life of the wealthy, while some of them contain a friendless and secluded outsider. He was often criticized for a lack of diversity in his work as a result of these recurring characters. Paul Levine, an award-winning author remarks that “The reaction to the amazing success of his early books has relegated Capote to the position of a clever, cute, coy, commercial, and definitely minor figure in contemporary literature, whose reputation has been built less on a facility of style than on an excellent advertising campaign. Even an earnest supporter would have to admit that Capote’s stories tiptoe the tenuous line between the precocious and the serious.” These issues in Capote’s writing can be easily understood by examining Capote’s childhood, and later his life as a celebrity. Levine refutes the view of Capote’s work as trivial, “the attacks on Capote seem more personal than literary.” Capote’s upbringing was not only distressed by the divorce and negligence of his parents, but also the difficulties he had growing up as a homosexual in a small Southern town. Due to Capote's harsh past, his work which on the surface may be interpreted as tenuous and weak, is indeed more meaningful and profound than it seems.
Capote's fame began with the appearance of "A Tree of Night" in magazines like Harper's Bazaar and Mademosielle in 1949. It is one of Capote's quintessential dark stories. The main character, a young girl named Kay, finds herself in the middle of nowhere, alone with two carnival performers. These people torment Kay and try to make her buy a "love charm", but their general appearance is what frightens Kay the most. Kay must decide what to do, but she is completely alone to do so. I would suggest this story because it is eerie and intriguing, and is very typical of Truman Capote because it reflects the intense fear that so preoccupied him. (AF)