Although Capote explains Perry’s actions in the present time, he additionally displays the impact of Perry’s childhood experiences on his decisions throughout his life; therefore, asserting that a person’s life path is set by the events of their childhood. Cookie’s affectionate behavior is the antithesis of Perry’s mother’s abysmal actions, causing Perry to seek out relationships, whether healthy or not, in order to fill the emotional hole dug by his mother. Cookie was a nurse that cared for Perry while he was hospitalized from injuries he acquired during a motorcycle accident: “A swell kid, Cookie, and she had liked him, pitied him, babied him, inspired him to read “serious literature”” (Capote 98). On the other hand, coddling was not a part of Perry’s relationship with his mother. The letter from Perry’s father explains what occurred when Perry and his siblings were taken by their …show more content…
Perry’s father explains the living situation of him and Perry when Perry was a child: “So I took to roaming to forget it all. I made a livin for us both. I sold my property and we lived in a “house car”” (Capote 127). The repetition of “I” illuminates that Perry’s father was only concerned with his sacrifices and how his choices would affect him, not bothering to worry about his son. A nomadic lifestyle, where Perry’s needs are put to the back burner is mirrored by his relationship with Dick--wandering aimlessly along the road in the United States---vacationing in Mexico with no plan in place. If he had had a stable household Perry may have never fallen into his nomadic way of life. Thus, never would have become friends with Dick, and he never would have killed the Clutters. The decisions of his father created a pattern, a way of life, that made it that much easier to start a life of criminal activity on the road with
Capote tells the story in a way that makes you feel you are being told about the characters by a close acquaintance of each individual character. When you aren't hearing the voices of the characters as they tell their own stories, we hear, not the voice of an author, but the voice of a friend who knew the characters well. (Before saying her prayers, she always recorded in a diary a few occurrences... Perry didn't care what he drank... etc.)
This selection almost creates a feeling that Capote is talking about himself as opposed to a man he never met.
Truman Capote establishes respect and trust in what he writes from with audience, ethos, through the use of an extensive variety of facts and statistics, logos. Capote uses so many dates, times, and other facts about the crime committed in the book and the subsequent investigation that the reader has to believe what the author is writing. The use of all these facts shows that Capote did his research and he interviewed, questioned, and obtained the opinions of every person that even slightly important to crime itself and the investigation/trial. The author is obviously very meticulous when it comes to dates and times; every important event in the book has a date and sometimes even a time of day to go with it. Some examples of dates included were the day of the murders (November 15th, 1959), dates of when Perry and Dick were here or there (December 31th, 1959- a small restaurant in Texas or noon on December 25th, 1959- beach in Miami Florida), date when the two criminals were apprehended (January 1st, 1960), dates when they were brought from this prison to that one and finally when they were brought to death’s row (April, 1960). Other small facts are also used by the author, like facts about the criminal’s early lives or experiences that they had, which could only have been obtained through extensive interviews with Perry and Dick. The use of all these logos by Capote establishes strong ethos, showing the reader that the author did more than enough research to show that he has the knowledge to write a whole book on the subject.
Truman Capote showcases his very distinct style of writing in his true crime novel, In Cold Blood. Capote intentionally frames ruthless murderer Perry Smith as a relatable, well-intentioned human throughout the whole novel, and employs various rhetorical devices to show us that Perry is not just a stone cold killer. Specifically, Capote uses diction comprised of complex words, interviews conducted by Capote personally in which he interacted with the suspects and their loved ones, and sentence structure that came off as very to the point, in order to illustrate Perry’s dynamic and unique personality, opposed to the one dimensional heartless murderer many made him out to be.
Although Willie Jay and Dick have contrasting morals, Capote displays how impressionable Perry is; therefore, Capote proves the importance of positive influence upon vulnerable people.
His mother was an alcoholic who gave him up to an orphanage run by nuns at the age of 7. Perry’s father, Tex Smith said, “ While my children were with her they run around as they pleased….” Perry and his siblings were left to their own devices and did not have a sense of order. In the example of Nancy, she had a curfew. This meant that Mr. Clutter was aware where she was and concerned about her safety, something a parent should do. The lack of this quality in Perry’s mother helps form Perry’s character today, although he mostly blames his Dad for everything. After all, it was "painful" to imagine that one might be "not just right" - particularly if whatever was wrong was not your own fault but "maybe a thing you were born with." Perry’s mother was not there to show him right from wrong in the years he should’ve learned. It was live and let live. His father later received custody of him and raised him on his own. But Perry later on expressed that he felt inferior to his siblings. Perry’s siblings received an education, something that Perry held a grudge about and also blamed his father for. He went on to explain, “I could’ve been
Perry Smith did not live the happy childhood that he deserved, abandoned by his family at a young age he was forced to live at a terrible orphanage. “The one where Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed...They hated me, too.” (Capote 132). In this specific orphanage, Perry was beaten by the nuns that own the place. The short sentences within this quote truly emphasize the dramatic and horrible conditions that Perry had to live with in the orphanage. Sympathy is created ...
Being defined by nature or nurture. Isn't enough to make finally decisions about one person. But for some it just might be. Perry Smith had an abusive past. It seems to still haunt him when he looks back on it. But that justify his crimes in anyway. Perry seems to have handles himself very well about the past ,but that isn't enough. Perry Smith on the night of November 15, 1959 was at a point where he made a choice that would affect him for the rest of his life. Perry deep down believes Mr. Clutter is a nice gentlemen and even says so. Yet his actions were done out of the natural nature to him. He then ends up cutting his throat, followed by shooting the rest of his family brutally. In this case, it clearly shows Perry smith as someone who takes up in the naturally
Although Perry lives a complicated life and it’s hard to explain the way he thinks, Truman Capote utilizes rhetorical devices such as imagery and metaphors to make clear his past life, thus relaying what drives him to make the choices he makes.
In the book “In Cold Blood” we meet Perry Edward Smith one of the men accused of killing the Clutter family. Perry is a unique man for how he see the world and how the world sees him. Although the townspeople and those who had heard of the murder only saw Parry as a murder. There is however one man who sees Perry more than he appeared to be and that man was Truman Capote. Perry had an interesting life from how he was raised, becoming friends with Richard Eugene Hickock, to the murder of the Clutter family, all the way to Capote writing about him and the trail he and Dick must face. It was Capote who brought the idea that Perry was not a bad person persa but rather he made a mistake that has caused him to spend the rest of his life behind the bars of a jail.
He is the character that most sympathized with because of his past. He never had a connection with his alcoholic mother and siblings. His parents never gave him the love, direction, and the moral values that children need from their parents. This contributed to his behavior. While Perry was testifying, Dr. Jones characterized him with severe mental illness. He mentions that Perry has “paranoid orientation toward the world,” (Capote 297). He goes into further detail by mentioning that Perry “is suspicious and distrustful towards others, tends to feel that others discriminate against him, and feels that others are unfair to him and do not understand him,” (Capote 297). It is completely understandable why Perry would think like this. He was treated horrendously by the nuns in the orphanage and when he lived with his family. Since Perry never had anything good happen to him growing up, he feels like he has to take out his frustration on people who are good. Vengeance for what he did not receive. While in court, Perry mentions why he killed the Clutter family, “It wasn’t because of anything the Clutters did. They never hurt me. Like other people. Like people all my life. Maybe it’s just that the Clutters were the ones who had to pay for it,” (Capote 290). Dr. Jones diagnosis Perry as a paranoid
The detailed account of the killers’ childhoods makes the reader sympathize with the Clutter family’s killers Smith and Hickock. Should they reserve the death penalty? Did Truman Capote take a stand on the death penalty? By giving the reader a detailed account of Perry Smith’s and Dick Hickock’s childhood, Capote sets up the reader for a nurture vs. nature debate on the death penalty. The question then becomes, do the effects (if any) caused by environment in childhood make for a trained killer or a natural born one?
Perry Smith was a short man with a large torso. At first glance, “he seemed a more normal-sized man, a powerful man, with the shoulders, the arms, the thick, crouching torso of a weight lifter. [However] when he stood up he was no taller than a twelve-year old child” (15). What Smith lacked in stature, he made up in knowledge. Perry was “a dictionary buff, a devotee of obscure words” (22). As an adolescent, he craved literature and loved to gain insight of the imaginary worlds he escaped into, for Perry’s reality was nothing less than a living nightmare. “His mother [was] an alcoholic [and] had strangled to death on her own vomit” (110). Smith had two sisters and an older brother. His sister Fern had committed suicide by jumping out of a window and his brother Jimmy followed Fern’s suit and committed suicide the day after his wife had killed herself. Perry’s sister, Barbara, was the only normal one and had made a good life for herself. These traumatic events left Perry mentally unstable and ultimately landed him in jail, where he came into acquaintance with Dick Hickock, who was in jail for passing bad checks. Dick and Perry became friends and this new friendship changed the course of their lives forever. Hickock immediately made note of Perry’s odd personality and stated that there was “something wrong with Little Perry. Perry could be such a kid, always wetting his bed and crying in his sleep. And often [Dick] had seen him sit for hours just sucking his thumb. In some ways old Perry was spooky as hell. Take, for instance, that temper of his of his. He could slide into a fury quicker than ten drunk Indians. And yet you wouldn’t know it. He might be ready to kill you, but you’d never know it, not to look at it or listen to it” (108). Perry’s short fuse and dysfunctional background were the two pieces to Perry’s corrupt life puzzle that soured and tainted the final “picture”.
He grew up in a different environment with a broken family with no apparent dreams. As a young boy his parents separated and he was forced to go with his mother. He later ran away to be with his father who turned him down and ended up being abandoned by his family completely. He then came to stay at a catholic orphanage, where he was abused by nuns and caregivers. His father finally decided to take him into his care and together they got away and traveled, ending his education before passing the third grade which bothered him as he became older. Perry joined the marines and army, then came back to relocate his father. Him and his father had a breakthrough over starvation, leaving Perry with no one else to turn to and therefore getting involved in committing crimes. Once he got caught and jailed, his mother had died and his brother and sister had both committed suicide. By all his experiences we can say Perry definitely lived a different life and his family portrayal was very different from the Clutters. After so much abandonment and abuse, we can understand why he almost feels nothing and how growing up has affected him. The American Dream for Perry might not have been a “perfect family” but may have been to find something with order, and control. The dream Perry’s family would be focused on is reaching a decent life as their past has been
He dreams of becoming “a treasure hunter in the tropics” () in Mexico. He wants to achieve this goal but he cannot do so due to his monetary deficits and the robbery he partook in failed miserable that costed four lives. His ticket to the American Dream eventually shifted to his death. In addition, Perry was subjected for a psychological evaluation because he may have been potentially a paranoid schizophrenic. However, it was not confirmed if he was or not because his mental state may have been an affect of his brutal childhood experiences. Yet, he ended up condemned guilty and hanged for