AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTION
In Cold Blood Argument Essay
Choice 1
Suggested time—40 minutes.
On November 15, 1959, in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas, a family of four was brutally murdered
by shotgun blasts only a few inches from their faces. The protagonist of the story, Perry Smith, a man
with a troubled past, is the one responsible for committing these murders. Truman Capote’s powerfully
written account of the Clutter family killings, In Cold Blood, asks whether a man alone can be held
responsible for his actions when his environment has relentlessly neglected him.
Consider the question Capote poses in his book. Then write an essay in which you explain your
position on the extent to which a person’s background should be considered when the death
penalty is an option during criminal sentencing. Use appropriate evidence from your reading (In
Cold Blood), experience, or observations to support your argument.
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AP® ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND COMPOSITION FREE-RESPONSE QUESTION
In Cold Blood Argument Essay
Choice 2
Suggested time—40 minutes.
“Truman Capote didn't study to become expert in capital crime and its punishment,” says William F.
Buckley on the Firing Line broadcast of September 3, 1968, “but his five and one half year engagement
of the slaughter of the Clutter family, which went into the writing of In Cold Blood, left him with
highly settled impressions in the matter.”
Buckley opens by asking whether “systematic execution of killers over the preceding generation might
have stayed the hand of the murderers of the Cutter family.” Capote replies that “capital punishment
— which I’m opposed to, but for quite different reasons than are usually advanced — would in itself
be a singularly effective deterrent, if it were, in fact, systematically applied. But because public
sentiment is very much opposed to it and the courts have allowed this endless policy of appeal — to
such a degree that a person can be eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen years under a sentence of capital
punishment — it becomes, in effect, an extreme, unusual, and cruel punishment. If people really were
sentenced to be executed and were within a reasonable period of time, the professional murderer knew
the absolute, positive end of their actions would be their own death, I think it would certainly give
them second thoughts.”
Defend, challenge, or qualify Capote’s argument that capital punishment is an extreme, unusual,
and cruel punishment. Use appropriate evidence from your reading (In Cold Blood), experience, or
observations to support your argument.
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