Identity: Breaking Free and Constantly Shaping Picture a white picket fence surrounding a lovely, suburban home. The working father, young housewife, and the 2.5 children: a nuclear family. A model family perfect in every way, destined to raise the perfect little patriots and send them off in the world. Nowadays, that stereotype has been rejected as family types, and people, shift and grow without bound. Nothing, anymore, can fit within a “model” as people are starting to become whatever they choose. No matter what outside or internal influence,in the end, people ultimately create their own identities. Breaking away from early embedded influences mark the primary steps of creating one's identity. People renounce the teachings of their own upbringing for choices that best serve them. In Truman Capote's novel, In Cold Blood, Mrs. Hickock expresses repeated confusion over her son's hand in the Clutter murders as he “was the best-natured little kid” (Capote 287). She then proceeded to wonder if his actions were her fault or an outcome of “the …show more content…
“Cut”, Bob Greene's essay, recalls many memories of men being told they were not “good enough” (Greene 59). All of the men had tried out for some sport team in their teen years, but were all rejected. Though the rejections were responded to differently, for one man it was “the last time [he] cried”, each of them look back at those moments as what had sculpted their lives forever (Greene 57). Undoubtedly, the cuts were the starting point of all of the men “'determining that [their] success would always be based on [their] abilities, and not on someone else's perceptions'” (Greene 59). The pure feeling of rejection in these memories coexists with the fiery ambition to forever ensure that their identities would reflect their unbending will to never feel such rejection
The mind of a killer is one that is not easily comprehended. The events of their lives deeply root and morph themselves into disturbed thoughts and mind sets that fuel a killer to commit murder. In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the case of the quadruple homicide of the Clutter family in Holcomb, Kansas involved murderers who were two very different individuals that had teamed up to commit an important “score”. The plan was devised by Dick Hickock to rob and murder the Clutter family and he brought about his cellmate from prison, Perry Smith to assist him with the job. Each man’s past contains different events that contribute to their not-so-sound states of mind and each view the crime differently. The psychological differences between the men give a better insight into the execution of the Clutter murders and the reasoning behind them.
Crime is seen by the public as unorthodox as well as cruel, in turn the public believes that only sick and twisted people from horrid backgrounds are capable of committing crime. Novelist and journalist Truman Capote writes in his book, In Cold Blood, about the Holcomb, Kansas murders of the Clutter family. The general public believed that the criminals were insane, but Capote wanted a deeper insight into the story by analyzing the crime and the murderers. Through embedding himself in his characters, fiction-style nonfiction, irony, foreshadowing, repetition, and cinematic style of writing, Truman Capote portrays crime and evil as normal human emotions that are poorly expressed in unwanted or hostile situations. As a young child, Truman Capote was plagued with distress.
In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, the author suggests the theme of crime along with his opinion of nature vs. nurture which asks the reader if the two main characters were born with evil or were raised in an environment with evil influencing them. First of all, Capote introduces one of the characters, Perry, as a “natural born killer” (55). Perry is seen as someone who possesses qualities that are ideal in order to be a successful killer. It is clearly seen that Perry’s feelings are almost absent and not there. He, himself would not be someone you would automatically think of persecuting and depicting of a killer. His gentle personality and intelligence
In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, he chronicles two criminals, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock, who slaughtered an entire family, but were they always those people? Surely, they did not come into this world with the identities of murderers. Perry experienced a tumultuous childhood -including both an emotionally and physically abusive father-, served in the Merchant Marines and the army, and sustained crippling injuries to his legs that left him addicted to aspirin. Not surprisingly, he turned to theft, his own choice, which put him in jail, where he met Dick and ultimately changed his identity to that of a murderer. What would have happened had Perry not experienced these events in his life? He would have turned out completely different, he would have never met Dick and never become a murderer. Had his identity never changed to that of a murderer, he would not have been
Throughout his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote continuously contrasts the kindheartedness and innocence of the Clutters to the malicious, manipulative demeanor of Dick Hickock and Perry Smith to emphasize the cold, cruel nature of their crime. By harshly interrupting peaceful, endearing images of Nancy Clutter baking a pie with descriptions of Dick and Perry planning the town darling’s very murder, Capote consistently juxtaposes good and evil. His tactic descriptions of the seemingly discordant yet parallel occurrences in different settings and employment of strong imagery and pathos throughout the novel prove effective in not only developing characterization and appealing to the reader’s emotions but building the contrast between good and evil that
As gender roles were enhanced, the nuclear family was birthed. This ideal family, mainly portrayed in popular culture, had a working father, homemaking mother, and children. Television shows depicting this type of household, Leave it to Beaver, and I Love Lucy, were not representative of the reality of America. Not all of Americans were white, and not all women were happy living as housewives (Boyer 101). Although most did not fit the mold
Neglect and painful insecurity tainted both Truman Capote and Perry Smith’s childhoods, resulting in common fears and experiences that Capote translates in his writing of In Cold Blood. Truman Capote lacked a stable childhood upbringing, internalizing a fear of abandonment, which he echoes through Perry Smith. Capote demonstrates an intense emotional attachment with one of the killers, Smith. Throughout the five years in which Capote worked on his project, he thoroughly examined Smith and ultimately befriended him because Smith’s troubled childhood that resembled his own. Capote’s parents, Lillie Mae and Arch, divorced at a young age, leaving Capote in the care of others, and as a result, he spent much of his childhood in Monroeville, Alabama (Truman Capote about the Author). This abandonment by his parents haunted Capote and allowed others to harass him for his effeminate ways. Although he found comfort in his lifelong friend Harper Lee, his relatives and friends in Alabama failed Capote by not providing the love and understanding of a mother and father (Truman Capote Biography). Smith’s youth, although more severe, paralleled Capote’s. In Smith’s childhood, “there was evidence of severe emotional deprivation…This deprivation may have involved prolonged or recurrent absence of one or both parents, a chaotic family life in which the parents were unknown, or an outright rejection of the child by one or both parents with the child being raised by others'" (Capote 191). Smith’s abandonment was due to his mother who “turned out to be a disgraceful drunkard” (Capote 78), and his father who deserted Smith after his separation. Because of his parents’ neglect, orphanages became the primary caretake...
Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer is a realistic fiction novel about a man named Christopher Johnson McCandless who leaves society behind and goes on an adventure, eventually to die in his dream destination, Alaska. Chris McCandless abandoned his family, donated all of his savings to charity, only took a few possessions and walked into the wild. He met many influential people and went to different places that shaped him along the way. When he eventually made it to the place he had been planning to go, Alaska, he eventually died of starvation. Chris McCandless’s identity throughout the novel Into the Wild was shown through his actions, was shaped by his interests, and was also affected by his values and beliefs, though he often did not live up to them.
In Cold Blood is a work of art, and gave a true meaning to life itself. Capote referred to In Cold Blood as “New Journalism”. He said that he wanted to bring the art of the novelist together with the techniques of journalism. There is much truth in it, whether or not it is “true” is at least debatable (Garrett,80). This provoking book generates the kind of deep interest and deep discussion. Truman invented the genre of true crime. In Cold Blood is not a tragic drama but an intervention on reality (Dakes, 69). Its dramatic interest lies in the dramatic class of murders and the pursuit of the criminals. The material of In Cold Blood is to some extent a return to Capote’s childhood and a real-life confirmation of his earliest imaginative creations and techniques (Nance, Page 626). In Cold Blood consumed more than six years of his life, but it won him enthusiastic praise, mountains of publicity, and millions of dollars (Krebs,320). The novel tells the story of the murder of the Clutter family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Clutter and their two teenage children, and the events that lead the killers to murder. The family was living in Holcom...
In Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, many of the characters all experience their own conflicts and struggles. Throughout the story the main characters, Dick and Perry, are described during the murder of the Clutter family, but the author also tells stories of their childhood. Their current life is shown to be vastly different than how it used to be in the sense that, they never used to commit crimes and they had a good early life. This changes when the characters begin experiencing more stress-filled and harsh events that result in their later lives as criminals. The quote, “inside each of us, there is the seed of both good and evil. It’s a constant struggle as to which one will win and one cannot exist without the other,” describes the lives of Dick and Perry appropriately. Throughout the book, Capote uses all three rhetorical appeals and strategies to write about the internal
Murder is a heinous crime, no doubt, but what makes a person to become so intolerable that he or she resort to extreme lengths of ending one’s life? The human mind has been a mystery when it comes to finding how it works and why it forces us to take one action over another. It does play an immense role when explaining extreme actions taken by a criminal or by a group of fugitives. Debates on why criminals commit violent crimes has been going on for years now, with one side being nature, stating that criminals are born, while others blame in their nurture (uprising) for their crimes. In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, these two sides are depicted by two characters: Dick Hickock as a natural-born murder and Perry Smith as a nurtured
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,
The detailed account of the killers’ childhoods makes the reader sympathize with the Clutter family’s killers Smith and Hickock. Should they reserve the death penalty? Did Truman Capote take a stand on the death penalty? By giving the reader a detailed account of Perry Smith’s and Dick Hickock’s childhood, Capote sets up the reader for a nurture vs. nature debate on the death penalty. The question then becomes, do the effects (if any) caused by environment in childhood make for a trained killer or a natural born one?
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.