A theme of In Cold Blood would be the importance of family. Family helps shape who you are as a person and your perspective of life- such as values and beliefs. The Clutter family was a warm, tight-knit, respectable family known to all. The Clutters were very religious and Herb would even exempt himself from social functions that did not seem to provide a “purpose.” “He did not smoke, and of course he did not drink; indeed, he had never tasted spirits, and was inclined to avoid people who had - a circumstance that did not shrink his social circle as much as might be supposed, for the center of that circle was supplied by the members of Garden City's First Methodist Church, a congregation totaling seventeen hundred, most of whom were as abstemious …show more content…
His mother was an alcoholic who gave him up to an orphanage run by nuns at the age of 7. Perry’s father, Tex Smith said, “ While my children were with her they run around as they pleased….” Perry and his siblings were left to their own devices and did not have a sense of order. In the example of Nancy, she had a curfew. This meant that Mr. Clutter was aware where she was and concerned about her safety, something a parent should do. The lack of this quality in Perry’s mother helps form Perry’s character today, although he mostly blames his Dad for everything. After all, it was "painful" to imagine that one might be "not just right" - particularly if whatever was wrong was not your own fault but "maybe a thing you were born with." Perry’s mother was not there to show him right from wrong in the years he should’ve learned. It was live and let live. His father later received custody of him and raised him on his own. But Perry later on expressed that he felt inferior to his siblings. Perry’s siblings received an education, something that Perry held a grudge about and also blamed his father for. He went on to explain, “I could’ve been
In Cold Blood is the true story of a multiple murder that rocked the small town of Holcomb, Kansas and neighboring communities in 1959. It begins by introducing the reader to an ideal, all-American family, the Clutters; Herb (the father), Bonnie (the mother), Nancy (the teenage daughter), and Kenyon (the teenage son). The Clutters were prominent members of their community who gained admiration and respect for their neighborly demeanors.
In Cold Blood might have been a nonstarter if not for Lee 's ability to convince the locals to take her friend seriously. Truman Capote did not make a great first impression on the conservative Kansan townsfolk. The prosecutor from the Clutter case, Duane West, remembers him as an 'oddball ' who was 'hard to take. ' Capote cut an eccentric figure, with his high-pitched voice and flamboyant clothes. He was openly homosexual, a lifestyle that was not tolerated in such a conservative Midwestern town.
Perry Smith did not live the happy childhood that he deserved, abandoned by his family at a young age he was forced to live at a terrible orphanage. “The one where Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed...They hated me, too.” (Capote 132). In this specific orphanage, Perry was beaten by the nuns that own the place. The short sentences within this quote truly emphasize the dramatic and horrible conditions that Perry had to live with in the orphanage. Sympathy is created ...
... the only difference is that he chooses to pull the trigger of a loaded gun. No one can dispute that Perry’s mother and father’s alcoholism and abuse are direct causes to his run-ins with the law.
The disruption of an all-American society plays a key factor in In Cold Blood because of the effect it has on the story. In Holcomb, Kansas, the community’s order is disrupted through the murdering of the Clutter family. “Nevertheless, when the community lost the ...
He is the character that most sympathized with because of his past. He never had a connection with his alcoholic mother and siblings. His parents never gave him the love, direction, and the moral values that children need from their parents. This contributed to his behavior. While Perry was testifying, Dr. Jones characterized him with severe mental illness. He mentions that Perry has “paranoid orientation toward the world,” (Capote 297). He goes into further detail by mentioning that Perry “is suspicious and distrustful towards others, tends to feel that others discriminate against him, and feels that others are unfair to him and do not understand him,” (Capote 297). It is completely understandable why Perry would think like this. He was treated horrendously by the nuns in the orphanage and when he lived with his family. Since Perry never had anything good happen to him growing up, he feels like he has to take out his frustration on people who are good. Vengeance for what he did not receive. While in court, Perry mentions why he killed the Clutter family, “It wasn’t because of anything the Clutters did. They never hurt me. Like other people. Like people all my life. Maybe it’s just that the Clutters were the ones who had to pay for it,” (Capote 290). Dr. Jones diagnosis Perry as a paranoid
Perry was born on October 27th, 1928 to two rodeo performers who would later separate when he was still a child. Perry would be raised by his mother who would battle with an addiction with alcohol his entire childhood. Before Perry could reach the age of adulthood his mother would die leaving him in the hands of a Catholic Orphanage. Where Perry was constantly abused both physical and emotional for wetting his bed, while would become a lifelong problem. In his teens Perry would go to live with his itinerant father. Within these years two of Perry’s sibling would end up killing themselves while his only living sibling would cut off all contact with Perry.
During his childhood, Perry experienced and was marked by brutality and lack of concern on the part of both parents (Capote 296). Dr. Jones gives a very detailed description of Perry's behavior. He says that Perry, who grew up without love, direction, or m...
Family plays a big role in most stories. In Cold Blood is no different, in the story family is able to shape the outcome of the characters in their younger years that will affect them later in life and the decisions that they will make. This will be shown by the Clutter family, Perry’s family, and dicks family, and the outcomes that this had on them.
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,
Being defined by nature or nurture. Isn't enough to make finally decisions about one person. But for some it just might be. Perry Smith had an abusive past. It seems to still haunt him when he looks back on it. But that justify his crimes in anyway. Perry seems to have handles himself very well about the past ,but that isn't enough. Perry Smith on the night of November 15, 1959 was at a point where he made a choice that would affect him for the rest of his life. Perry deep down believes Mr. Clutter is a nice gentlemen and even says so. Yet his actions were done out of the natural nature to him. He then ends up cutting his throat, followed by shooting the rest of his family brutally. In this case, it clearly shows Perry smith as someone who takes up in the naturally
Perry Smith was a short man with a large torso. At first glance, “he seemed a more normal-sized man, a powerful man, with the shoulders, the arms, the thick, crouching torso of a weight lifter. [However] when he stood up he was no taller than a twelve-year old child” (15). What Smith lacked in stature, he made up in knowledge. Perry was “a dictionary buff, a devotee of obscure words” (22). As an adolescent, he craved literature and loved to gain insight of the imaginary worlds he escaped into, for Perry’s reality was nothing less than a living nightmare. “His mother [was] an alcoholic [and] had strangled to death on her own vomit” (110). Smith had two sisters and an older brother. His sister Fern had committed suicide by jumping out of a window and his brother Jimmy followed Fern’s suit and committed suicide the day after his wife had killed herself. Perry’s sister, Barbara, was the only normal one and had made a good life for herself. These traumatic events left Perry mentally unstable and ultimately landed him in jail, where he came into acquaintance with Dick Hickock, who was in jail for passing bad checks. Dick and Perry became friends and this new friendship changed the course of their lives forever. Hickock immediately made note of Perry’s odd personality and stated that there was “something wrong with Little Perry. Perry could be such a kid, always wetting his bed and crying in his sleep. And often [Dick] had seen him sit for hours just sucking his thumb. In some ways old Perry was spooky as hell. Take, for instance, that temper of his of his. He could slide into a fury quicker than ten drunk Indians. And yet you wouldn’t know it. He might be ready to kill you, but you’d never know it, not to look at it or listen to it” (108). Perry’s short fuse and dysfunctional background were the two pieces to Perry’s corrupt life puzzle that soured and tainted the final “picture”.
He grew up in a different environment with a broken family with no apparent dreams. As a young boy his parents separated and he was forced to go with his mother. He later ran away to be with his father who turned him down and ended up being abandoned by his family completely. He then came to stay at a catholic orphanage, where he was abused by nuns and caregivers. His father finally decided to take him into his care and together they got away and traveled, ending his education before passing the third grade which bothered him as he became older. Perry joined the marines and army, then came back to relocate his father. Him and his father had a breakthrough over starvation, leaving Perry with no one else to turn to and therefore getting involved in committing crimes. Once he got caught and jailed, his mother had died and his brother and sister had both committed suicide. By all his experiences we can say Perry definitely lived a different life and his family portrayal was very different from the Clutters. After so much abandonment and abuse, we can understand why he almost feels nothing and how growing up has affected him. The American Dream for Perry might not have been a “perfect family” but may have been to find something with order, and control. The dream Perry’s family would be focused on is reaching a decent life as their past has been
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.
In 1966, Truman Capote published the novel In Cold Blood that pierced the boundaries of literary genres, as he narrated the events of the 1959 Clutter family massacre in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas and the quest that took place afterwards through the perspectives both the murderers and those looking for them. As Capote bends these genre normalities, he ventures with the killers and the detectives and describes the murderers’ lives in-depth to further characterize Dick Hickock and Perry Smith--their psychological states and the possible contributing factors to their undeniable personality disorders. The two killers are ultimately diagnosed by a mental health professional with mental illnesses rather than chronic personality disorders,