Responding to the resolution of the Clutter family murder case and questioning the humanity of using the death penalty, Truman Capote, the father of true crime itself and a well-known journalist from the 1960s, wrote with elaborate style and vivid details the first nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, in which he developed and differentiated the dynamic characters Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. Portraying Perry as a man one could possibly sympathize with and demonizing Dick as a nefarious criminal, Capote, using dialogue, description, and character actions, informatively revealed defining characteristics of both Dick and Perry to a nationwide audience in order to assert that the two not only had many differences, but also that these differences
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In one interaction, Dick responds to Perry, saying, “I promise you, honey, we’ll blast hair all over them walls.” In this remark alone, traits that define Dick pour from each word and from the spaces in between, revealing to the reader a deep and scary menace that is infested inside of Dick. After all, the picture of hair spread all over walls covered with blood from the gunshot to which he is referring is not only gruesome— it’s inhumane. Who in their right mind could say such an unfathomable thing with a resolute, humorless, unwavering face and be completely serious? Through Capote’s inclusion of this single remark, Dick becomes someone who lacks rationale, who is encompassed in dark thoughts, and who should be feared by all those around him. By quoting Dick, an attitude toward him forms that is much different than that toward Perry, for Dick is a monster who possibly deserves the inflictions of capital punishment, while Perry is someone that the audience can sympathize with, and therefore, the idea of using capital punishment against him becomes a more uncertain …show more content…
He forms opinions of the two characters in the readers’ minds using dialogue and he portrays the actions and the appearances of the two to develop their character traits by incorporating certain uses of diction and style. All in all, Perry’s intelligent and sympathetic characterization, which question the use of the death penalty, along with Dick’s dark and unreliable personality form two characters on opposite ends of a spectrum, not only showing the reader their differences, but also defining two separate
In one interaction, Dick responds to Perry, saying, “I promise you, honey, we’ll blast hair all over them walls.” In this remark alone, traits that define Dick pour from each word and from the spaces in between, revealing to the reader a deep and scary menace that is infested inside of Dick. After all, the picture of hair spread all over walls covered with blood from the gunshot to which he is referring is not only gruesome— it’s inhumane. Who in their right mind could say such an unfathomable thing with a resolute, humorless, unwavering face and be completely serious? Through Capote’s inclusion of this single remark, Dick becomes someone who lacks rationale, who is encompassed in dark thoughts, and who should be feared by all those around him. By quoting Dick, an attitude toward him forms that is much different than that toward Perry, for Dick is a monster who possibly deserves the inflictions of capital punishment, while Perry is someone that the audience can sympathize with, and therefore, the idea of using capital punishment against him becomes a more uncertain …show more content…
He forms opinions of the two characters in the readers’ minds using dialogue and he portrays the actions and the appearances of the two to develop their character traits by incorporating certain uses of diction and style. All in all, Perry’s intelligent and sympathetic characterization, which question the use of the death penalty, along with Dick’s dark and unreliable personality form two characters on opposite ends of a spectrum, not only showing the reader their differences, but also defining two separate