Perry O Parsons Character Analysis

Perry Smith dreamed of seeing his stage-name “Perry O’Parsons” on newspaper headlines, wishing to attain fame and fortune through his great musicianship, as well as envisioned himself discovering sunken ships possessing chests full of diamonds, pearls, and gold. It is the year 1960, and Perry’s name is in newspapers all around America, but he is not being written of as a musical prodigy, nor is he being praised for uncovering lost treasure. Instead, newspapers are writing about Perry being on trial for committing a crime that is shocking people across the nation. On November 15th, 1959, Perry Smith and his partner-in-crime Dick Hickock murdered an innocent mother, father, and their two adored children. On the surface, these two criminals are

Perry was in awe of Willie-Jay and fell in love with how Willie validated him, such as when Willie-Jay describes him as “a man of extreme passion, a hungry man not quite sure where his appetite lies, a deeply frustrated man striving to project his individuality against a backdrop of rigid conformity”’ (Capote 43). Feeling uncared for by most others, Perry felt comfort in the compliments his friend gave him, and was reassured that he is as great as he saw himself to be: “He did give a damn—but who had ever given a damn about him? His father? Yes, up to a point. A girl or two—but that was ‘a long story.’ No one else except Willie-Jay himself. And only Willie-Jay had ever recognized his worth, his potentialities, had acknowledged that he was not just an undersized, overmuscled half-breed, had seen him, for all the moralizing, as he saw himself” (Capote 45). He supported Perry to a fault, where even when he pointed out Perry’s extremes in mood, Perry was too swayed by his affirmations, and Willie was too passive. When Willie-Jay decided to move on from prison life and clean his slate, Perry was lost. In desperation for somebody to care for him, Dick Hickock became Perry’s next interest: “So when he received Dick’s invitation, and realized that the date Dick proposed for his coming to Kansas more or

Perry felt his dreams so dearly, and felt it even more so when they were stripped away by his unfair life and the people he was around. Perry dreamed of being a musician, where “In one of his favorite theatrical fantasies, his stage name was Perry O’Parsons, a star who billed himself as ‘The One-Man Symphony’” (Capote 48). In addition, Perry had fantasized about “prospecting for gold, skin-diving for sunken treasure” (Capote 91). After the murder, Perry knew that the chances of living out his fantasies were shot: “Hot islands and buried gold, diving deep in fire-blue seas toward sunken treasure—such dreams were gone. Gone, too, was ‘Perry O’Parsons,’ the name invented for the singing sensation of stage and screen that he’d half-seriously hoped some day to be. Perry O’Parsons had died without having ever lived” (Capote 202). The loss of the hope in his dreams to come true ties back to both the mistreatment from his family, from others who were meant to care for him, and the people he cared