Family Matters

Michael J. Fox, a famous American actor, once said, “Family is not an important thing. It’s everything.” This quote connects with the non-fiction novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote perfectly, because family has a major role in this novel. Capote’s novel is a true account about the murderers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. They murdered the Clutters, a Kansas family of four. The novel takes the reader for a play-by-play account from the murderers running, all the way to the detectives catching them, and then ends with Hickock and Smith’s executions. In the novel, In Cold Blood the reader can automatically tell that family matters in each character’s life, it shapes them into the kind of person they are and how that character handles certain situations.

To begin talking about how family shapes a person, it’s important to focus on Perry Smith. Smith is the only person who is shaped negatively by his family. Smith’s mother, Flo, is the first family member that negatively impacts Smith’s childhood by abandoning him. In the novel, Smith states, “it was not long afterward my mother put me to stay in a Catholic orphanage” (93). He says this after expressing to his mother he wants to live with his father, Tex. In that orphanage Smith got abused by the nuns, which only aggravates Smith and his mother’s relationship. Smith is angry and resents his mother, and the relationship with his father is not much healthier. His father makes Smith drop out of school, and becomes upset about dropping out because Smith wants to learn, but is not allowed that privilege (277). Smith is a very intelligent man, but is not permitted to reach his full potential; therefore not able to receive a well-paying job and the respect he imagines that he deserves. Smit...

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...d. The opposite of the Clutter household would be the Smith’s household. Nancy had a strong parental guidance unlike Smith; he did not have strong parental guidance. Smith’s parents were careless and usually only thought of themselves; therefore destruction came into his life. The integrity of families symbolizes the good and evil. If the family has integrity, like the Clutters, then they are the all American good family. However if the family does not have integrity, like Smith’s family, they shape into bad people that could potentially hurt others.

Growing up with one’s family shapes and defines them. The lessons they learn early in their childhood, carries throughout their life and it determines if one is prone to violence or not. Similar to the novel, In Cold Blood, the healthier the relationship with family, the more likely the attempt to have a better life is.