Truman Capote finds different ways to humanize the killers throughout his novel In Cold Blood. He begins this novel by explaining the town of Holcomb and the Clutter family. He makes them an honest, loving, wholesome family that play a central role in the town. They play a prominent role in everyone’s lives to create better well-being and opportunity. Capote ends his beginning explanation of the plot by saying, “The suffering. The horror. They were dead. A whole family. Gentle, kindly people, people I knew --- murdered. You had to believe it, because it was really true” (Capote 66). Despite their kindness to the town, someone had the mental drive to murder them. Only a monster could do such a thing --- a mindless beast. However, …show more content…
The whole “robbery” was planned by Dick, the drive was planned by Dick, and even the cover up process was his idea. Although he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger, Dick is equally responsible for the Clutter family murder as Perry. It would take a horrible person to murder a family, but it takes a vial beast to plan, examine, organize, and operate the murder. Dick grew up with loving parents who were no poorer than any other family in the neighborhood. According to both him and his parents, he was a good kid who did well in school and lettered in nine sports. Similar to Perry, he feels cheated in life and is willing to do anything he must to get what he deserves. Along with this, he has zero insight on how to life a normal life. Dick is the type of person to act on his impulses. He 's likes to have a good time and live in the moment. His aspirations are easy money and easy women. With this, he seems to have no ability to weigh the consequences of his actions, and he will do whatever it takes to get his way. This type of momentary reaction is prone to lead a life of “poor decision.” If he’s in need of money, he will write a few bad checks or maybe steal from a store. If this jig wasn’t plentiful enough, he hitches a ride with a stranger to basically rob and kill everyone in the car. Dick was known for being a terrible person as one man stated, “Dick Hickock! Don 't talk to me about …show more content…
Although they may not be “normal” people, they are human beings. He turned what people believed to be horrible, vial, grim, and desolate beasts into human beings who are unable to control how they act or feel. The expression, “never read a book by it’s cover” somewhat applies to the story of Dick and Perry. They were convicted killers who murdered an innocent family --- a crime no “human” could commit. So people automatically assumed they are not human; they must be beats. However, Capote uncovers their life stories to look deeper, and eventually one could see that Dick and Perry aren’t beast after all. Capote was able to humanize the beasts that everyone thought weren’t
Capote’s structure throughout the entire book created an excellent backbone to tell the two alternating perspectives of the book that is of the victims; the clutter family and the murders; Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. This allowed Capote to not have a bias towards the accounts being told. The pattern of victims then the murderers causes an attractive puzzle where the reader collects an amount of information leading to the climax of the actual slaughter. He actually contin...
In this story he gives the murderers their own sense of self and showed how they choose to deal with their lives. This also lets readers know that each person was different and that neither of them truly knew how to “be normal”, as most people would say, and live their own lives without causing trouble. Pushing the reader to form an opinion, biased or not, with the information that was given about each character by Capote. Capote through this all, did a great job of bringing the murderers to life for his reader and sharing the stories of each person that may not have been said by the media or anything else that gives people information about the world that is around them. Giving these characters lives and experiences were great parts to the story and is what ultimately gave the book its
Most people believe that everyone gets what they deserve. That all bad actions deserve consequences. To many, that is what the so-called “justice” system is for. Criminals are supposed to be punished by the law, but is it always fair to the criminals? What if one of those criminals had an awful life growing up and just was unable to stay out of trouble? It is just this question that Truman Capote addresses in his book, In Cold Blood. Throughout the book, Capote creates sympathy for Perry Smith while claiming the justice system is flawed in the way it punishes the wrong people.
Capote uses recurring themes in In Cold Blood to emphasize the role of family and egotism in criminals. “On their way, and never coming back - without regret, as far as he was concerned, for he was leaving nothing behind, and no one who might deeply wonder into what thin air he 'd spiraled. The same could not be said of Dick. There were those Dick claimed to love: three sons, a mother, a father, a brother,” (Capote 66). This quote is important because it shows the background of both Perry and Dick. Perry came from a “broken home” where no one had ever truly loved him, not even his father. Dick, on the other hand, came from a loving family, and the fact that he loved them back was a sign that he didn’t have a mental illness and he was rather committing these crimes for other reasons. The role of families is highlighted in a way that shows that while families can be a source of protection and love (such as the Clutters), a lack of one (Perry Smith) can make you a social misfit. Perry Smith had nothing to lose. On the other hand, Dick actually had a family who loved him. Both of these aspects give deeper insight into the characters and their minds. Egotism is also a motif within the novel. "Why should that sonofabitch have everything, while he had nothing? Why should that
Admitting to only befriending Perry because “he had beaten a colored man to death” (Capote 109) is evidence of the perverted mind of Dick, which discredits any notion of having good intentions behind any of his actions. Capote included this confession because if his judgment of character is based solely off of the ability to commit heinous crimes then there is not a whole lot of good light being shed upon his own character. Furthermore, Dick goes on to attack Perry in his mind thinking there’s “something wrong with Little Perry” (108). Since Capote has already attempted to establish a general liking and sympathy towards Perry, he hopes the reader will be close-minded towards Dick and dislike him more for being so rude.
Truman Capote put-to-words a captivating tale of two monsters who committed four murders in cold blood. However, despite their atrocities, Capote still managed to sway his readers into a mood of compassion. Although, his tone may have transformed several times throughout the book, his overall purpose never altered.
Truman Capote presents the world with the complex character of Perry Smith in his book, In Cold Blood. As the book reaches its close the reader is presented with the question concerning the validity of Perry’s sentence: was the court right in sentencing Perry smith to death even though he has the characteristics of a mentally insane person? Although this question starts out somewhat simple it branches out, creating new questions that must be answered in order to correctly determine the validity of Perry’s punishment. In order to answer the question concerning Perry’s punishment, one must first answer questions concerning the meaning of insanity when it comes to criminals, along with what were, if present, characteristics of Perry Smith that
In Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, the Clutter family’s murderers, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, are exposed like never before. The novel allows the reader to experience an intimate understanding of the murderer’s pasts, thoughts, and feelings. It goes into great detail of Smith and Hickock’s pasts which helps to explain the path of life they were walking leading up to the murder’s, as well as the thought’s that were running through their minds after the killings.
In the nonfiction novel, “In Cold Blood” by Truman Capote, the author tells a story of the murderers and victims of a slaughter case in Holcomb, Kansas. Instead of writing a book on the murder case as a crime report, the author decides to write about the people. The people we learn about are the killers, Dick and Perry, and the murdered family, the Clutters. The author describes how each family was and makes the portrayals of Dick and Perry’s family different from the Clutters.The portrayal of the Clutters and of Dick and Perry’s families, was used to describe what the American Dream was for each character. In the beginning we learn about what type of family the Clutters were and how they represented the American Dream for the people of Holcomb.
Capote's structure in In Cold Blood is a subject that deserves discussion. The book is told from two alternating perspectives, that of the Clutter family who are the victims, and that of the two murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. The different perspectives allow the reader to relive both sides of the story; Capote presents them without bias. Capote masterfully utilizes the third person omniscient point of view to express the two perspectives. The non-chronological sequencing of some events emphasizes key scenes.
It’s interesting that a family of integrity could get destroyed by two men who come from chaos. “ On their way, and never coming back—without regret, as far as [Perry] was concerned, because he was leaving nothing behind, and no one who might deeply wonder into what thin air he'd spiraled. The same could not be said of Dick. There were those Dick claimed to love: three sons, a mother, a father, a brother […]” (135). Dick and Perry have a history of crime, they’re not men with loving caring and united families like the Clutter’s were. Why target such a specific family? This clearly goes to show that no matter what any family can be targeted for crime or
In the novel, In Cold Blood, written by Truman Capote, there is an abundant amount of character development with the two murderers, Perry Smith and Richard (Dick) Hickock. Capote, as an author, has the ability to include or omit whatever details he wishes. With this power, an author can sway the reader’s opinion towards whatever he wants it to be. The power of manipulation, as used by authors, can be used to not only show bias but to kick start the creation of emotions that are contrary to the feelings of the public. This can be clearly seen in the description of the events that took place on the night that Smith and Hickock murdered four members of the Clutter family. In this section, Capote talks about both men having given a statement but only includes the details of Smith’s
In Cold Blood tells the true story of the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, where Truman Capote focuses in on the two killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. He manages to capture both killers as a whole people rather than a one sided killers, but provokes pity for Smith while describing Hickock as selfish and sick Throughout the novel, the reader is completely aware of the fact that Smith is a murderer, yet sympathy and confusion are evoked through recounts of his abusive childhood and the question of mental illness. Perry Smith plays a pivotal role in In Cold Blood as a morally ambiguous character, demonstrating Capote’s bias towards Smith.
him for wetting his bed” (Capote 96). The abuse is then further detailed when describing his obsession with a parrot, “As the years went by, the particular torments from which the bird delivered him altered; others - older children, his father, a faithless girl, a sergeant he'd known in the Army - replaced the nuns” (Capote 96). His childhood was bleak compared to Dick’s. Dick’s childhood
Some of those concerns being capital punishment, and mental illness among others. Critics and Scholars believed that there were no social concerns in the novel, but also believed that Truman Capote did succeed in having a merged presentation of gruesome facts; ample evidence is is seen in the let's-just-stick-to-the-facts tone seen throughout the novel (Truman 265). Truman Capote's In Cold Blood brought questions to light about the responsibilities and costs of an individual's freedom. Capote explores and considers not only the two criminals who eventually will pay for their crimes but two grown men struggling to make reality conform to their fantasies. The pasts, dreams,and hopes of Perry Smith and Dick Hickock give a suggestion that the multiple murder and crimes they committed are just their attempts for freedom, an unrealistic sense of freedom. Often times Dick Hickock would claim that he was normal but psychiatric evaluations would claim something entirely different. They revealed that he had “severe character disorder” and a “psychological inability” to