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The nature of dreams essay
The nature of dreams essay
Usage of dreams in literature according to Freudian theories
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Pages 2-3 Nature of Dreams Truman Capote writes on how for many, their lives are not perfect, and that as we have the ability to dream, those dreams will not always come true. Whether it is because of the decisions that we make or the decisions made for us, dreams will not always be achieved. The characters in stories by Truman Capote dream. At times, the characters may believe their dreams can be attainable, but for many they are not. The subject of their dreams depend on who they are as human beings. Many are good people who want what's best for themselves and those around them and attempt to achieve their dreams in a positive way. For example, in Capote's intense novel, In Cold Blood, Herb Clutter, the father and ranch owner, dreamed of and desperately wanted what was best for his children, wife, fellow Holcomb citizens, and employees. However, others are not the best people, and dream of things that can simply benefit themselves. Those same people attempt to achieve their dreams through ways that harm others. In the story, In Cold Blood, the murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith, dream of living lavishly, but their dreams fail because the way they attempt to …show more content…
achieve their dreams is through murdering the Clutter family and taking the family fortune. Many dreams are not at all attainable.
When Truman Capote speaks of dreams, he means that, “...dreams are misty ambitions” (Zacharias 346). That is not because the character does not attempt to achieve the dream, but because it is impossible to achieve. Many dreams are simply unattainable. For example, in Capote’s short story, Preacher’s Legend, the main character, Preacher has dreams of meeting Jesus in hopes of asking Jesus to take him so that he may die and be reunited with his wife, who has passed away. Preacher’s dream is unattainable because as much as Preacher believes he understands the bible, what he dreams of is impossible. Also, in Capote’s short story, House of Flowers, the main character dreams of marrying a perfect man. However, her dream is impossible to achieve as no one is
perfect. On the contrary, many dreams are in fact, attainable. For example, in The Headless Hawk, the main character, Vincent, dreams of being with a woman who will love him as much as he loves her. Vincent’s dream is attainable when he meets D.J. The two spend plenty of time together and eventually, Vincent believes that he is in love with D.J. Nevertheless, Vincent ruins his own dream, that is in fact attainable, by not accepting D.J. Whether the dream is attainable depends on whom the dream belongs to and what they decide to do in order to obtain their goals or dreams. The subject of each character’s dream depends on who the character is and what they would want from their lives. In Breakfast at Tiffany’s, the main character, Holly Golightly, dreams of living a lavish and amusing life. Though Holly’s dreams are extravagant and impressive, who she is, is a light hearted, cheery person. Through discovering the characters goals and dreams, the readers are given a better understanding of who the characters are and what the symbolic meaning is behind the story. The characters dream because they want more from their lives, something that they want from life, a dire need to own something or be someone that they are not already.
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 the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, the author skillfully orders information and articulates his word choice in order to successfully tell the story. Capote chooses to include certain events before others to show the reader the development of the case caused a change in the overall feelings of characters such as Alvin Dewey. Alvin, the detective who desperately searched for the Clutter killers reads, “on the first page of the Kansas City Star, a headline he had long awaited: Die On Rope For Bloody Crime,” which portrays to the reader that he was relieved after months to know that they were sentenced to death. (337) By including the word choice “he had long awaited” the reader may assume that he is pleased by this outcome. (337) However,
The book, In Cold Blood, by Truman Capote, was a very interesting book to read. In Cold Blood is about two men who brutally murdered the Clutter family in their own home. The crime took place on November 15, 1959 in the small town by the name of Holcomb. According to investigators, there was no motive to the crime at all. Throughout the book, the murder takes place, the investigation goes on, the trail was held and then the execution of the killers is described. The two murderers of the Clutter family were Richard Hickock, who went by the name of Dick, and Perry Smith. Throughout the book, Perry Smith was a very held back character, his upbringing wasn’t the greatest which may have played a role in the murder. Analyzing Perry Smith on his personality, his childhood and how he grew up, and what he was like before the murder will hopefully help to better understand why Perry did what he did to the Clutter family. Perry Smith was one of the cold blood killers of the Clutter family, why did it come to such a brutal ending?
Dreams are there to make the illusion of the impossible, you must always strive to do the impossible. Two people have shown that it is possible to achieve the impossible, and those two people are Althea Gibson and Barbara Jordan, and those two people had done their absolute best to make sure that they make it, and to make sure they make they succeed in life. In the article Althea Gibson and Barbara C. Jordan, both written by Frank Lafe They were both faced with obstacles that didn't want them to succeed, they had dreams that had seemed impossible for them to be able to achieve at that time. Both of them had different environments that affected their future, the environments around people affect the person too. All of those describe the lives
Capote in his book In Cold Blood set out to create an image of the murders and their motives with the use of rhetorical devices. He uses certain devices, such as diction and syntax to give each character their own distinct personality and also develops their characteristic and tendencies as a person as well. Capote also brings the characters to life with the switching of tone between them and with the things they say about themselves and events going on in the story. Another way Capote develops the reader's perception of the murderers was by the use of imagery to draw the reader a picture in their minds to what the character would look like face to face. With all of these combined he gave each murderer their own personality and views, ultimately
Truman Capote, and his book In Cold Blood has a tone of tragic and mellow on pages 134-135. These pages we read carefully and analyzed, the two pages have these two sentences that pop out and things make sense. The pages are injected with irony and confusion. Completely contradicting himself, Capote writes about the crime that has happened and the loveable moments in the café.
This passage when Capote begins to introduce Perry more in depth. From his childhood to later on in his life. Perry’s way of life as a child was a tough one, in which his mother put him in a “catholic orphanage. The one where the Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed…They hated me, too.” Capote’s use of short sentence syntax creates the effect of emphasizing the horrible and dramatic conditions Perry had to live with. Also, the nuns of the orphanage are described as “Black Widows,” a metaphor, to make it seem like it was truly terrible. The color black associates with death and when metaphorically used to describe a nun, it creates sympathy for Perry. Later in the passage, capote creates a short narrative of Perry’s experience in war. “Perry, one balmy evening in wartime 1945…” The storytelling helps understand more about Perry in the way he thinks and acts. The atmosphere of this passage is a sad mood. It talks about the terrible childhood and early life of Perry. It is clear that no one ever cared for Perry and it affected him dramatically.
To fully understand the purpose of In Cold Blood, one must explore Capote's strategy in writing such a tale. In his "In Cold Blood," Capote raises the possibility of rational order without ever fully endorsing it, often revealing that random and accidental events shape the history of the crime. Because of this, we as readers cannot pinpoint one exact reason for the incidents that occurred at the Clutter house that fateful night, and are forced to sympathize with two opposing characters within the story, Perry Smith and Alvin Dewey.
Madness, madness, madness. It is but a word, yet those who possess it are capable of doing the most amazing or terrible of things. According to the Merriam-Webster's online dictionary, madness is defined as “a state of severe mental illness.” Perry Edward Smith is the best individual that depicts this characteristic. Throughout Truman Capote's novel “In Cold Blood” the main character, Perry Smith, as Dr. Jones says “... shows definite signs of severe mental illness” (Capote 296). There is no coincidence in the definition and Dr. Jones' description because the truth is that Perry is utterly, and unconsciously mad. Perry, in his madness, commits acts so inhumane that chill as well as perplex the reader. However, it is essential to understand what Perry's madness was and how his previous experiences can possibly justify his actions.
Dreams deferred usually end up being diminished from existence. In the novel Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck the characters dreams, which are put on, hold all get destroyed. Lennie's dream was to live on the land in which he owned and to tend the rabbits (pg.14). He finally was almost about to achieve his dream in a month but after working in a ranch for a few days he killed Curly's wife by accident (pg.94) so he dies and also loses all his dreams so his dreams are pessimistic. Also with Lennie's dream being destroyed also George's dream was which was also to live on a ranch so (pg.7). This happens because he can't make his dream reality without Lennie showing pessimistic out view on dreams. Dreams only can bring you so far it all depends on what your destiny is. This is because even though Lennie and George's dreams were crushed even though they tried there hardest to reach them also Candy, Crooks and Curly's wife dreams were ruined too.
Brian Conniff's article, "Psychological Accidents: In Cold Blood and Ritual Sacrifice," explains how Truman Capote's nonfiction novel demonstrates the psychological trauma that the murderers and the townspeople of Holcomb face after the murders of the Clutter family. Conniff begins his article by stating that in the last twenty-five years imprisonment and execution has reached an all-time high level of obsession among the American public. Since this type of violence has been so normalized it is rarely properly understood (1). With this in mind, prison literature has continually suggested that "the most fortified barriers are not the physical walls and fences between the prison, and the outside world; the most fortified barriers are the psychological walls between the preoccupations of everyday life . . .and the conscious realization that punishment is the most self-destructive kind of national addiction" (Conniff 1).
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.
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.
“All our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them.” This quote from Walt Disney addressing the concept of achieving dreams is very accurate, and can be seen throughout literature today and in the past. Dreams can give people power or take away hope, and influence how people live their lives based upon whether they have the determination to attack their dreams or not; as seen through characters like the speaker in Harlem by Langston Hughes and Lena and Walter Younger in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun.
The American Dream provides a uniformed idea of a goal that is seldomly achieved. It includes having a successful job, a healthy family, and happiness achieved through hard work and determination. Those born and raised well with strict parents often attain the American Dream, but those raised with abusive parents that live separately often find the American Dream extremely difficult to achieve. However, this idealistic stereotype can be false. Surprisingly, in the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote the American Dream poses as a difficulty to maintain and achieve by the Clutter family, Perry Smith, Dick Hickock, and Floyd Wells.