Have you ever heard the saying, “Crime doesn’t pay,” or “If you do the crime, you do the time?” Merriam- Webster defines crime as an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by state and is punishable law. There is a lot of crime being committed each year not only in America, but worldwide. Although people only look at what is happening here in America, the crime rate in some countries surpasses the ones here in America. There are over 2,000 crimes recorded per 100,000 populations in the United Kingdom (UK), making it the most violent place in Europe. Committing a crime nowadays for any person(s) is almost common and crime does not discriminate whether you are here in America or abroad. In the film “In Cold …show more content…
Smith’s father abused his mother and his siblings and his mother gather their belongings and moved away. Perry, mother committed suicide when he was just thirteen years old and he and his siblings had to be placed in a Catholic orphanage, where he was abused physically and mentally there also. Like Perry Smith, one of Aileen parents also committed suicide; her father. With her father dead and abandoned by her mother, she and her brother went and lived with her grandmother who was an alcoholic and abused them too. With the childhood, both Smith and Wuornos experienced they were destined to become violate people or maybe even worse just as they turned out to be. It was not always like that with the two killers. In the opening scene, one of Charlize lines who plays Aileen were “When I was I thought for sure that one day, I could be a big, big star. Or maybe just beautiful…beautiful and rich, like the women on T.V. I had a lot of dreams.” That is just what Smith would do, daydreaming of him being famous playing his guitar some place in Las Vegas. They both would escape somewhere in their minds to be someone else. At the beginning of the film “In Cold Blood” the music kind of gives the audience that feel of something is about to happen and it is not going to good for the person on the receiving end. The heavy use of jazz music helped influence the …show more content…
In both films, “In Cold Blood” and “Monster” the title themselves represent the idea of good and evil, a cold blooded crime and a monstrous act. One symbol in “In Cold Blood” was that silver dollar. After looking all around the home and growing restless the two killers are willing to take anything of value and that’s just what Perry did. He would frisked the girl’s room and found a little purse, like a doll purse. Inside it was a silver dollar. Perry is thinking about the silver dollar right before he killed Herb. The image of a cruel killer looking under the bed when he dropped the silver dollar was just like the crime itself pointless. On the other hand a revolver hand gun that Aileen used and carried around when meeting her “tricks or johns” was one of the main symbols in this movie. The gun represents death for any man she had come in contact with alongside many Florida roads. A long line of sexual abuse and not having any money would drive her into prostitution by this time in the movie. Guns play a significant role in the murders of both films. Another thing to consider was Mexico. Perry and Dick had talked about Mexico a few times. They were convinced that Mexico would be the place for them to live out the remainder of their lives once they had completed the job. Unlike Perry and Dick, Aileen after she committed her first murder she did not think or went on the run at all. Instead she went and picked up her
Is it justifiable to inflict the death penalty on individuals who have committed murder? As majority would have it, yes. There are many arguments in favor of capital punishment. Some of these include taking a murderer out of this world once and for all, and saving money that would be spent on them if they were given a life sentence, as well as the majority rule of citizens of the United States wishing it to stay. In Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, Dick and Perry were assigned the death penalty for the cruel murders of four members of the Clutter family in a small town in Kansas. Not only did this pair of men deserve what they got, but it is also better for the state that they were executed.
Family plays a big role in most stories. In Cold Blood is no different, in the story family is able to shape the outcome of the characters in their younger years that will affect them later in life and the decisions that they will make. This will be shown by the Clutter family, Perry’s family, and dicks family, and the outcomes that this had on them.
Capote uses recurring themes in In Cold Blood to emphasize the role of family and egotism in criminals. “On their way, and never coming back - without regret, as far as he was concerned, for he was leaving nothing behind, and no one who might deeply wonder into what thin air he 'd spiraled. The same could not be said of Dick. There were those Dick claimed to love: three sons, a mother, a father, a brother,” (Capote 66). This quote is important because it shows the background of both Perry and Dick. Perry came from a “broken home” where no one had ever truly loved him, not even his father. Dick, on the other hand, came from a loving family, and the fact that he loved them back was a sign that he didn’t have a mental illness and he was rather committing these crimes for other reasons. The role of families is highlighted in a way that shows that while families can be a source of protection and love (such as the Clutters), a lack of one (Perry Smith) can make you a social misfit. Perry Smith had nothing to lose. On the other hand, Dick actually had a family who loved him. Both of these aspects give deeper insight into the characters and their minds. Egotism is also a motif within the novel. "Why should that sonofabitch have everything, while he had nothing? Why should that
In Cold Blood is a novel written by Truman Capote in 1966. In Cold Blood is a true account of a multiple murder case that took place in Kansas in the 1950's. The book outlines a brutal murder case, but it shows the story from many perspectives, not just that of the law. Capote introduces you to the Clutter family, a well known, very hard working and loyal family to the community. The town of Holcomb is a small farming town. There is not much excitement in the town, and that is the way the people liked it. Everyone went to church and the community trusted each other, until the unthinkable happened. The town's most prominent family was killed. It is even worse when the only clues are two sets of boot tracks. Everyone in and around the town become scared because if such evil could be brought upon the best family known, what will happen to them? When Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood, he wrote a masterpiece. When he wrote the book he developed the character Perry so that even after you watched him kill you feel sympathetic for him. He proves that you can even see some good in the worst of people. He does this by slowly developing Perry's character. He gave an in-depth view of Perry's world. He showed that Perry, although he had troubles in his life and sometimes had a total disregard for people's life he also respected the people. Perry felt bad for some of the people he met. He also was willing to forgive people.
The victims, the murderers, the victims, the murderers,...-- this is the pattern throughout the first two of the three parts of In Cold Blood. During these first two parts of the novel, the reader is gathering pieces of the puzzle leading up to the slaughtering of the Clutter family. Ultimately, the paths of the murderers and their victims come together and climax in the multiple shotgun murders.
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
These two men, both coming from different backgrounds, joined together and carried out a terrible choice that rendered consequences far worse than they imagined. Living under abuse, Perry Smith never obtained the necessary integrity to be able to pause and consider how his actions might affect other people. He matured into a man who acts before he thinks, all due to the suffering he endured as a child. Exposed to a violent father who did not instill basic teachings of life, Smith knew nothing but anger and misconduct as a means of responding to the world. He knew no other life. Without exposure to proper behavior or responsible conduct, he turned into a monster capable of killing an entire family without a blink of remorse. In the heat of the moment, Perry Smith slaughtered the Clutter family and barely stopped to take a breath. What could drive a man to do this in such cold blood? The answer lies within his upbringing, and how his childhood experiences shaped him to become the murderer of a small family in Holcomb, Kansas. ¨The hypothesis of unconscious motivation explains why the murderers perceived innocuous and relatively unknown victims as provocative and thereby suitable targets for aggression.¨ (Capote 191). ¨But it is Dr. Statten´s contention that only the first murder matters psychologically, and that when
In 1966, Truman Capote published the novel In Cold Blood that pierced the boundaries of literary genres, as he narrated the events of the 1959 Clutter family massacre in the small town of Holcomb, Kansas and the quest that took place afterwards through the perspectives both the murderers and those looking for them. As Capote bends these genre normalities, he ventures with the killers and the detectives and describes the murderers’ lives in-depth to further characterize Dick Hickock and Perry Smith--their psychological states and the possible contributing factors to their undeniable personality disorders. The two killers are ultimately diagnosed by a mental health professional with mental illnesses rather than chronic personality disorders,
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,
In Cold Blood is a true account of a multiple murder case that took place in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959, written by Truman Capote. Capote’s attention to detail causes the reader to gain an extreme interest in the Clutter family even though they were an ordinary family. The suspense that is a result of minimal facts and descriptive settings was an elaborate stylistic technique that gave effective results throughout the book. His ability to make this account of a horrid crime more than just a newspaper description was a great success as a base of his many literary devices, not just is great focus to small details.
Richard Mulcaster, a British instructor of English, once wrote, “Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward.” Mulcaster recognizes that both genetic and environmental factors determine the type of a person one becomes. Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood gives the reader an opportunity to see prime examples of how nature and nurture influence one’s character. Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood introduces the reader to two men; Richard Eugene Hickock known as Dick throughout the novel, and Perry Edward Smith whose lives of crime are almost identical; although both Perry and Richard come from very humble backgrounds, their childhood particularly their family life, has very little in common. It is not until later in their lives that we begin to see similarities between the two men. Despite their differences, Perry’s upbringing and Dick’s genetic disposition allow both men to share a disregard for life, which becomes apparent on the night they gruesomely burglarized and murdered four innocent members of the Clutter family.
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.
The main purpose of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is to offer insight into the minds of the murderers of the Clutter family, Dick and Perry. However, asking an audience to be open-minded about men who have committed such heinous crimes is no easy task. Capote instead methodically and rather artfully combines imagery, parallel structure, and perspective in two separate passages found between pages 107-113 to contribute to his characterization of Perry and Dick where the former is deserving of sympathy and the latter, disgust.
Crime is an extremely prominent part of American society. Recorded activity within the US saw 10,329,135 (1,246,248 violent crimes and 9,082,887 property crimes) crimes perpetrated with 62.5% of all violent crimes pertained to aggravated assault and 68.2% of all property crimes were considered larceny-theft in 2010. (FBI.2011) Despite the large number of crimes the United States also has the largest number of incarcerated citizens per capita in the world with nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners coming from the United States’ 5% of the world population. This is due to much harder punishments in the US than those that are given a shorter longer period of incarceration or merely fined in other countries.(Liptak 2008) Due to the prevalence of crime in the US, economists have used models to explain the behavior and ramifications of government actions and the motivations behind crime and its effect on society that psychologists and sociologists are usually unable to address.
The U.S. Department of Labor (2011) reported the national average of unemployment for 2008 was 5.8 percent. The rate dramatically increased in 2009 with an average of 9.3 percent and 9.6 percent for 2010. While unemployment rates have increased, the FBI’s preliminary reports for 2010 show that law enforcement agencies across the U.S. have reported a decrease of 6.2 percent in the number of violent crimes for the first 6 months of 2010 when compared to figures reported for the same time in 2009. The violent crime category includes rape, murder, robbery, and aggravated result. The number of property crimes also decreased 2.8 percent when compared to the same time last year. Property crimes include burglary, larceny-theft, and motor vehicle theft. Arson decreased 14.6 percent when compared to the same time periods of 2009 (FBI, 2011).