Throughout the story, the two main characters work together and try to rob a family, yet the family ends up dead. Hickock and Smith are two totally different people from contrasting backgrounds. Their backgrounds play a huge role in the character they are. The individuals differ in childhood experiences, physical appearance, and personality. Within the story we get a description of both murders overtime. The two men are total opposites in many ways. Perry is described as a small man, but very muscular in his upper arms and chest. His feet and legs, however, are small and delicate. Perry bis said to have stiff Indian hair and Irish Indian blend skin ( ). On the other hand, Dick is tall yet strong. As we get farther into the story and we find out more about their physical appearance, we can create an image of Smith and Hickock. Mrs. Hickock says: “No, sir, I wouldn’t have him in the house. One look and I saw what he was. With his perfume. And his oily hair. It was clear as day where Dick had met him” (169). Mrs. Hickock was quick to judge Perry just by his appearance. Within this quote Mrs. Hickock is saying with just a look at Perry she could tell that he is the reason her son is in trouble. Not once did she accuse her own son, Dick. Perry and Dick’s home …show more content…
Perry was a religious, sympathetic man. He talks about his relationship with a squirrel, that he then names Red. Perry would spend his time with him and teach him tricks (254). He felt bad each day when he had to leave Red. The relationship that Perry had with him shows how kind-hearted he actually was. Capote also classifies Dick to be more savage and barbaric than Perry. Capote describes his behavior when running down dogs; "'Boy!' He said-and it was what he always said after running down a dog, which was something he did whenever the opportunity arose. 'Boy! We sure splattered him,'" (112-113). This barbaric and cruel behavior casts quite a poor light on
Although Perry lives a complicated life and it’s hard to explain the way he thinks, Truman Capote utilizes rhetorical devices such as imagery and metaphors to make clear his past life, thus relaying what drives him to make the choices he makes.
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 ...
Unable to conform to society’s norms, Richard Eugene Hickcok is raised by his parents who are modest farmers. In spite of his family’s hardship Dick’s childhood is pretty typical, he is popular throughout high school, plays sports, and he dreams of going to college. Due to his family’s lack of resources, Dick is unable to fulfill his dream of attending college. In spite of Dick’s unfortunate drawbacks Dick lives an average life, he marries has three children, and becomes a mechanic. Dick lives a typical American life, but soon after his third child is born Dick has an extramarital affair which ends his marriage. Shortly after his divorce from his first wife Dick remarries, but his second marriage ...
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
In the book “In Cold Blood” we meet Perry Edward Smith one of the men accused of killing the Clutter family. Perry is a unique man for how he see the world and how the world sees him. Although the townspeople and those who had heard of the murder only saw Parry as a murder. There is however one man who sees Perry more than he appeared to be and that man was Truman Capote. Perry had an interesting life from how he was raised, becoming friends with Richard Eugene Hickock, to the murder of the Clutter family, all the way to Capote writing about him and the trail he and Dick must face. It was Capote who brought the idea that Perry was not a bad person persa but rather he made a mistake that has caused him to spend the rest of his life behind the bars of a jail.
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...
All of mans behavior comes from somewhere in the universe, but the most important is how we control our emotions. Perry's life story brought him a sense of humor and wisdom to belong deeply to both the community and the land. He shows his responsibility as a fireman saving the lives of women and children, maybe this is the best way he could express his manliness. Perry States, "There is an undeniable thrill in fighting fire. at some level most of us have a perverse hanger for danger, a desire to be tested, to survive fire-a trial by fire literally."
By the time Smith and Hickock are hanged, Smith is portrayed in the role of misunderstood good guy in the good-guy/bad-guy literary device. Capote was not apposed to the death penalty, he used the double handing as the dramatic ending to In Cold Blood. Thought out the third section of In Cold Blood. Whenever Hickock is contemplating or gagging in a sexual act, Smith reacts in an angry or jealous way. Capote repeatedly interprets Smith’s actions towards Hickock as showing his morality, where Hickock is voiced as having none.
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
Dick had a good life going, he just didn't feel like it went the way he wanted it too. He was popular, smart, an athlete just wasn't enough for him. On the other hand, Perry had a bad life. He was between foster homes, and even had his siblings and father commit suicide while his mother drank herself away. Putting all that together i learned that, Nurture plays the biggest role in life. It has the ability to determine weather you turn a good life into and complete wreak such as Dick Hickock had. In a way it also applies to Perry considering his life was a wreck all the way
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
..., fellow boot blacks, and himself. He proved that who you know, and how well they know you, truly makes a drastic impact on how people succeed in America. In this sense, Ty Kiisel is right, but it also took a smidge of prior insight of Dick to acquire the right connections. Ragged Dick always keeps a keen eye on his morality, never letting it pull him into the wrong crowd.
He dreams of becoming “a treasure hunter in the tropics” () in Mexico. He wants to achieve this goal but he cannot do so due to his monetary deficits and the robbery he partook in failed miserable that costed four lives. His ticket to the American Dream eventually shifted to his death. In addition, Perry was subjected for a psychological evaluation because he may have been potentially a paranoid schizophrenic. However, it was not confirmed if he was or not because his mental state may have been an affect of his brutal childhood experiences. Yet, he ended up condemned guilty and hanged for
Fitzgerald uses foreshadowing to depict that in chapter 8 Dick is flirtatious with Rosemary, foreshadowing Dick’s future affair. Dick states, “'What I’m coming to is—Nicole and I are going up to Paris to see Abe North off for America—I wonder if you’d like to go with us'” (Fitzgerald 56) Dick invitation is the start of a troubling situation, the affair. As well as, "But the space between