Justice and death seemingly go hand and hand in our justice system. When a person commits a horrible enough crime they are meet with capital punishment, other wise known as the death penalty. People who commit such crimes are portrayed as evil, soulless beings that hold no remorse for human life whatsoever. This description can be applied to most violent offenders, but what some people fail to realize that the offenders aren’t wicked monsters conjured from god knows where; they’re humans. Their actions are inexcusable of course, yet it’s important to establish the fact that they are people with thoughts and emotions, no matter how skewed they may be. In Truman Capote's True Crime novel, In Cold Blood, he takes this thought wholeheartedly when describing Perry Smith, one of the two murders of the Clutter family. He uses
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Either from the influence of the Clutter’s community or of Capote’s own accord isn’t immensely important. The first one that many readers may miss is the epigraph in the beginning of the book in french. It’s taken from Francois Villon’s, The Ballad of Hanged Men. The men in the poem are looking to God for mercy before they meet their fate, which is a major contrast to Perry and Dick seeing as they aren’t religious in the slightest. The idea that only believing in God is necessary for showing for mercy to any living being, since neither Perry nor Dick showed mercy to the Clutters. Yet, One of the other notable religious allusions is when Perry is taken away by his savior, a yellow parrot he compares to Jesus. The parrot arrived while Perry slept, attacked the nuns while they begged for mercy, and carried him away to “paradise”. The “Jesus” bird saved Perry from his abusive caretakers and showed him compassion and mercy, two things he was void of at the time. Religion is mainly used as a moral force that shows mercy to others, which shows the flaws in Perry’s
Either from the influence of the Clutter’s community or of Capote’s own accord isn’t immensely important. The first one that many readers may miss is the epigraph in the beginning of the book in french. It’s taken from Francois Villon’s, The Ballad of Hanged Men. The men in the poem are looking to God for mercy before they meet their fate, which is a major contrast to Perry and Dick seeing as they aren’t religious in the slightest. The idea that only believing in God is necessary for showing for mercy to any living being, since neither Perry nor Dick showed mercy to the Clutters. Yet, One of the other notable religious allusions is when Perry is taken away by his savior, a yellow parrot he compares to Jesus. The parrot arrived while Perry slept, attacked the nuns while they begged for mercy, and carried him away to “paradise”. The “Jesus” bird saved Perry from his abusive caretakers and showed him compassion and mercy, two things he was void of at the time. Religion is mainly used as a moral force that shows mercy to others, which shows the flaws in Perry’s