The gallows: a place where no civilian, criminal, or sane person wants to end up. Many characters in Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood, end up in this very same place. Three of those characters left to hang were Perry Edward Smith, Richard “Dick” Eugene Hickock, and Lowell Lee “Andy” Anderson. All the crimes that they have committed result in the same consequence. While perusing this novel, the reader will learn more about two of these men along with the major crime the story revolves around. Truman shows these crimes that Perry, Dick, and Andy commit in strategic, yet complicated ways which leaves the reader to find similarities and differences between their experiences. Not only does Truman discuss their experiences, but he cleverly switches
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While it is unsure whether or not he actually killed anyone in the Clutter family, he is the mastermind behind the crime. Having been the one to plan their demise down to every last detail, without an ounce of guilt. Despite his heavy planning, Dick thinks very little about the consequence of his actions, he only thinks about the carefree, wealthy life that he craves (Capote, 1965, p. 194). His disregard of consequences can also be shown by looking at some of his other actions: robbing many different shops, using fake checks in order to reach his desired lifestyle, returning to Kansas after committing a mass murder, and murdering the Clutters in the first place. Along with ignoring the consequences of his actions, the reader can also see Dick’s lack of guilt over all of the crimes that he commits. While the normal person would feel guilty over committing a small crime, Dick feels no guilt whatsoever after murdering an entire family, destroying two teenager’s futures, and placing the murder weapon in his family’s house. Instead of feeling guilty, he chose to completely forget that the event even happened and when asked by Perry he asks, “Why the hell can’t you forget that? (Capote, 1965, p. 167)?” In fact, the only regret that Dick has, is that he got caught. Regardless of his disregard of consequence and lack of guilt, Truman does give reasons to sympathise with Dick. One of the main …show more content…
Andy was incarcerated after murdering his entire family in pursuit of money he would gain in the event of their death. After committing this horrible act Andy showed no remorse, instead acting nonchalant and uncaring with their deaths, simply stating, “I don’t care what you do with them (Capote, 1965, p. 314).” Disregarding his own family's dead bodies as if they were trash, thinking that he had the right to kill his mother that's just how Andy’s brain worked. He was the only one significant person in his world which leaves him emotionless when it comes to others and has no care for their well being or survival. It was this strange thinking pattern that led Andy to plead insanity in order to have his death penalty remover. However despite his emotionless nature, he was deemed sane having been fully aware of the nature of his acts and suffering no delusion, false perceptions or hallucinations (Capote, 1965, p. 324). His surprisingly sane nature left him open to the death penalty. Regardless of his deemed sanity Andy is anything but, he was never considered significant always in the background and never taught real emotion. Andy doesn’t know the worth of any human life, even his own, deciding to smoke, eat, and read himself to death, not caring about the future that lies before him. Andy’s thoughts on life cause the reader to pity him, he thinks that a
While it is unsure whether or not he actually killed anyone in the Clutter family, he is the mastermind behind the crime. Having been the one to plan their demise down to every last detail, without an ounce of guilt. Despite his heavy planning, Dick thinks very little about the consequence of his actions, he only thinks about the carefree, wealthy life that he craves (Capote, 1965, p. 194). His disregard of consequences can also be shown by looking at some of his other actions: robbing many different shops, using fake checks in order to reach his desired lifestyle, returning to Kansas after committing a mass murder, and murdering the Clutters in the first place. Along with ignoring the consequences of his actions, the reader can also see Dick’s lack of guilt over all of the crimes that he commits. While the normal person would feel guilty over committing a small crime, Dick feels no guilt whatsoever after murdering an entire family, destroying two teenager’s futures, and placing the murder weapon in his family’s house. Instead of feeling guilty, he chose to completely forget that the event even happened and when asked by Perry he asks, “Why the hell can’t you forget that? (Capote, 1965, p. 167)?” In fact, the only regret that Dick has, is that he got caught. Regardless of his disregard of consequence and lack of guilt, Truman does give reasons to sympathise with Dick. One of the main …show more content…
Andy was incarcerated after murdering his entire family in pursuit of money he would gain in the event of their death. After committing this horrible act Andy showed no remorse, instead acting nonchalant and uncaring with their deaths, simply stating, “I don’t care what you do with them (Capote, 1965, p. 314).” Disregarding his own family's dead bodies as if they were trash, thinking that he had the right to kill his mother that's just how Andy’s brain worked. He was the only one significant person in his world which leaves him emotionless when it comes to others and has no care for their well being or survival. It was this strange thinking pattern that led Andy to plead insanity in order to have his death penalty remover. However despite his emotionless nature, he was deemed sane having been fully aware of the nature of his acts and suffering no delusion, false perceptions or hallucinations (Capote, 1965, p. 324). His surprisingly sane nature left him open to the death penalty. Regardless of his deemed sanity Andy is anything but, he was never considered significant always in the background and never taught real emotion. Andy doesn’t know the worth of any human life, even his own, deciding to smoke, eat, and read himself to death, not caring about the future that lies before him. Andy’s thoughts on life cause the reader to pity him, he thinks that a