Truman Capote

Thesis Statement

Ever since birth, Truman Capote was unique. He was a little person but despite the hardships he faced in childhood he always hung on to his dream of becoming a writer. When he started to write, it was evident that he had potential.

Discussion

Truman wrote classic books such as In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's. Truman was a clever witted man and it was just that wittiness of his that would become the death of him. He would write about all of his new famous friends and reveal their deepest darkest secrets with a smile. At the end of his life, he was ostracized because he had revealed the secrets of his friends without their permission. Maybe his difficult time as a child was what caused him to turn to drugs and alcohol, and impair his judgement, but one may never know. To understand his death fully we must look back to his beginning in the town of Monroeville, Alabama.

Truman Steckfus Persons was born an only child in New Orleans on September 30, 1924. Truman's parents' marriage was described as being in a "constant state of turmoil" (American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies 111). His father, Arch Persons, was a schemer whose plans were almost never successful. For a while he worked as a clerk for a steamboat company, but he really didn't stick with any job for long. He was a man who would leave home in search of what he described as "new opportunities." His mother, Lillie Mae Faulk, was a sixteen-year-old beauty queen and an alcoholic, and when she was seventeen she gave birth to Truman.

Truman Capote started writing about this time (age eight) and was very good at it, but Truman dared not tell a soul. In New York, Truman attended the Trinity ...