The Role Of Identity In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

At birth, every person is given a name, a birth certificate and a social security number. However, labels and documents do not identify who one is or who he will be. Family, environment, and circumstances shape an individual. At any one point in time, an individual may have one identity but at another given point, they may have another. What causes one’s identity to change? At birth, identity begins to form, shaping an individual; and while personal choice slightly influences a person’s identity, environmental factors weigh most heavily in molding a person’s permanent identity.
Sports play a large part of an athletic student’s life, weighing heavily on one’s identity. In his essay, “Cut”, Bob Greene relays how he and several others are cut from their middle school sports team because “[they weren’t] good enough” (Greene 58). Because of this cut, Greene and his peers end up pushing harder than ever in other areas of their life. He notes, “an inordinately large proportion of successful men share… the memory

of being cut from a sports team as a boy” (Greene 58). Greene himself even noticed, “[his] ambition has been enormous ever since then…” (Greene 58). But why does their cut from the team make them strive everywhere else in life? Bob Graham, one of Greene’s acquaintances, muses the reason is because “being cut was what started [him] determining that [his] success would always be based on [his] own abilities, and not on someone else’s perceptions” (Greene 59). Although, because of their cut from the team, their own personal choice pushed them to become the men that they are today. Greene and Graham’s identity evolved when their coach cut them from their middle school team to one of a hardworking, successful man.
The home life environment profoundly affects identity.

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

hanged.
A parent’s opinions and beliefs are a substantial part of how children react in other parts of life. Studies have shown that Asian-American students maintain better grades and promote better study habits than their American counterparts. In fact, “Asian-Americans consistently get better grades than any other group of students…” (Butterfield 407). What pushes them to do so well, but not others? The facts show that the reason is that at an early age their parents constantly pushed them to ignore social aspects of school and to strictly focus on academics. Their parents pushed a change of identity on them. As a result, these students worked harder to excel in school and in life after school.
Identity is who an individual is, what they are like and what kind a person they are. One cannot always help what they are dealt, and as a result, one cannot always help what their identity is and how it changes. An individual is born with simplistic things but environmental factors are an enormous part of how their identity is grown and shaped.