The Damaged, Dangerous, and Dauntless
Perry was damaged more than Dick, but Dick was worse in the other aspects, dangerous and dauntless. In the book, “In Cold Blood” there is a lot of evidence to show how different these two men were. They were both damaged, dangerous, and dauntless. After hearing how these men can be characterized, it shows how their friendship could have been created. Opposites attracted? Or using one another for their own personal gain? Now, damage, where most of the problems can start. It can be easily explained for both men.
In the book, “In Cold Blood”, Perry’s childhood was discussed on pages 125-128.It was a letter written by his father to help Perry obtain parole. This is where you learn the possible roots of
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Perry’s damage. Mental damage that is. It tells how his mother had become a drunkard. Later Perry’s father and mother divorced, with Perry’s father gaining full custody. It says how his early life seemed great yet his father was working on W.P.A, with very small wages. So, that shows life could have been hard for them. They lived in a house car for a while, and Perry rarely went to school. So he doesn’t have all of his education. Like his father, who can’t seem to spell. “But rite after school was out, he ran away to my lawyer’s office Mr. Rinso Turco. (126)”. This is where you learned how hard his life was. Possibly why he has many of the problems he grew up to have. Now Dick, on the other hand, we are clearly shown how his childhood was completely different than Perry’s. Dick had loving parents, his family was in a good financial situation. He did exceptionally well in school. He had good grades and was very involved. He had lettered in 9 sports. He was also pretty smart. “(-he was very intelligent. An I.Q. test taken in prison gave him a rating of 130) (31)”. There isn’t much evidence to show how or why he really became the person he was, a pedophile murderer. After seeing how different these two grew up it’s hard to think “They are actually friends?”. In essence, they could be considered friends. But really seems as if they just use each other. Perry used Dick to try to learn how to be a tough, or masculine, man. Dick used Perry for some type of “play toy”. Someone to beat around with, someone to harass. Also someone he had thought to be ‘scary’ or ‘bad’. They had met in prison, with all the stories that brought them together. One man in jail for petty crimes. Another for breaking and entering. After reading the book and seeing what type of people Dick and Perry were, it could be very hard to point to who did what. A creep, who enjoys running over dogs, and is satisfied with blood, A.K.A Dick. He was the one who committed petty crimes. Then Perry, the artistic, guitar playing, hymn singing man. The robber. Never would have guessed, right? Dick, a man who would write bad checks. Steal cars, never think about his actions. He was actually a very dangerous man. Who would kill the people who picked him up from his hitchhiking. To steal the car and go, use more bad checks on cheap alcohol and cheap women. Potentially diagnosed with an attachment disorder. He could never be a normal human, could never actually love anyone. A person who claimed to love his family and friends and write bad checks in their names. Also a man who was a pedophile, “for his sexual interest in female children was failing of which he was “sincerely ashamed” (201)”. While Perry was sent to prison for breaking and entering he still seemed to be a kind hearted man. Someone who wanted to fit in. Now, because he wanted to fit in he created these stories to seem like he was bad. A story of killing a man in Vegas. He likes to see himself as smart, creative and very sensitive. In which he is. Many people don’t even realize his smarts and talent. He absolutely hates this. After partaking in these murders and during the psych. Interview. It is found out that Perry suffers from schizophrenia. An abnormal social behavior that can cause patients to hear and see things that aren’t real. It is also learned that he blacks out when in times of crime. He can also now be considered dangerous. Maybe that is why they are attracted to each other for some sense of friendship. Now even though both these men committed this crime there is no true way to tell who was more dangerous. Anyone who would kill a family of four, to find a safe that wasn’t even there could be considered dauntless. Determined, fearless, a word that could define these two men. Maybe define more than the other. Dick and Perry, two men who have been to jail, who know pain, and torture, and know the feeling of neglect.These two seem to be pretty dauntless. November 15, 1959 was the day the Clutter family was brutally murdered. After the murders the boys seemed to be happy. All full of joy, laughing, sleeping, eating. Crazy for two men to do after committing such a horrendous act. Dick afterwards thought everything was amazing, even after not finding the safe he was looking for.”He had arrived home at noon, kissed his mother...-- When the meal was over, the three male members of the family settled in the parlor to watch a televised basketball game.” (73).
It seemed like he didn’t even care about what he had done. He was determined for a safe he couldn’t even find, but fearless afterwards.
Perry on the other hand had felt guilt and was afraid after he did it. Not exactly right after. While reading the Kansas City Star he would’ve rather tried to fix the grammar than actually realize it was him. During the murder he wasn’t really aware of what he was doing. It was said that he actually blacked out and didn’t know who or where he was. But when they had gotten to Mexico, he seemed fine again. Smiling real big after catching a fish, and getting his picture taken.
Both these men seemed to be fearless. Dick seemed more fearless than Perry. Who thought it was all laughs and giggles even when they got arrested and sentenced to death. Perry pretending to be okay and finally crumbling down to the truth. Crying, having thoughts of suicide and finding out that he had a serious mental disease. Another reason why they could be friends, because they were both fearless at one point.
All things
considered,
Through the course of the book, Capote uses vivid descriptions to his advantage in order to place emphasis on more noteworthy parts of the story. Capote’s choice of imagery characterizes Perry as a person and gives an idea to who he is. Perry’s life prior to crime was normal for awhile, until his family situation crumbled: “in the ring, a lean Cherokee girl rode a wild horse, a ‘bucking bronc,’ and her loosened hair whipped back and forth, flew about like a flamenco dancer’s. Her name was Flo Buckskin, and she was a professional rodeo performer, a ‘champion bronc-rider.’ So was her husband, Tex John Smith; it was while touring the Western rodeo circuit that the handsome Indian girl and the homely-handsome Irish cowboy had met, married, and had the four children sitting in the grandstand. (And Perry could remember many another rodeo spectacle--see again his father skipping inside a circle of spinning lassos, or his mother, with silver and turquoise bangles jangling on her wrists, trick-riding at a desperado speed that thrilled her youngest child and caused crowds in towns from Texas to Oregon to ‘stand up and clap.’)” Perry’s troubles after his parents separation may very well have contributed to his becoming a murderer later on down the road. The abrupt change in his life at such a young age, clearly had a lasting impact on him and his lifestyle. His past altered the way he thought and the type of person he was. Capote quotes,
The book, Heat written by Mike Lupica, is a novel about a young boy named Michael Arroyo who faces many difficulties throughout the book, all for his right to play his beloved game of baseball. Michael lives with his dad, Papi, and his brother, Carlos. They are all Cubans who came to the United States for a better chance to follow their dreams. Papi always encourages Michael to play baseball and he always has high hopes for Michael’s career in baseball. It is right to believe in Michael so much because later he fulfills his father's dream for him. After Papi dies of heart failure, Michael still continues Papi dream for him, to be the Little League Champion. Throughout the book Michael meets two characters who have significant impacts on him,
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.
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...
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.
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
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.
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
book, and by the end of the book we feel like we know exactly how Perry feels, and we have a understanding of some of the hardships that the soldiers faced in Vietnam. In this book, Perry kills
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
In Italy, after he begins his affair with Rosemary, Dick is disillusioned with her. He finds that Rosemary belongs to other people. In his disillusionment, his thoughts turn to Nicole, and how she is still "his girl - too often he was sick at heart about her, yet she was his girl" (213). Rosemary is no longer his possession solely and this cracks his surface. He returns to his love for Nicole like a guard, because he is weak without it. He refers to it as "an obscuring dye" (217). He is Nicole, and Nicole is he, and at this point the line between them has been blurred to bring them together. Dick does not realize that as much as he believes Nicole depends on him, he is dependent on her. He depends on her neediness to define him. Dick knows, however, that Nicole is important to him and that the thought "that she should die, sink into mental darkness, love another man, made him physically sick"(217). Not only is this excellent foreshadowing on Fitzgerald's part, but it gives us a measure just how dependent Dick is. Physical illness is uncontrollable. If even the thought makes causes him to have psychosomatic symptoms, it is imaginable what the actuality would bring. Dick needs Nicole badly, more so than ever at this point.
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