Perry Smith

“In Cold Blood”. He talks exclusively on the character Perry Smith including a description of his troubled past and dysfunctional life. They way Capote portrays Perry throughout the entirety of the novel makes the readers sympathize for him and attempts to make an excuse for his actions, and makes him appear as a victim rather than a cold hearted murderer. Capote also gives readers an underlying impression of his homosexuality, and tells how Perry was unpredictable which made many people afraid…

purposely intended the readers to feel sympathy for Perry. In page 239, he says “"Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another." Smith is known as a potential paranoid schizophrenic which also explains why he didn’t hesitate to kill the family, regardless that Dick wanted to abort the plan since there was no safe and he had no desire to kill anyone, and that led to Perry calling him a coward and telling him to “man up”.…

Dick is continuously questioned, he never stops lying. Dick states, “Hickock said, ‘Perry Smith killed the Clutters.’ He lifted his head, and slowly straightened up in the chair, like a fighter staggering to his feet. ‘It was Perry. I couldn’t stop him. He killed them all’” (230). Though Dick creates the whole scheme for the murder, he refuses to admit his involvement. While Dick continues to put all the blame on Perry, his real nature reveals itself. Because Dick will not admit to his…

The book itself is divided into four parts: the Last to See Them Alive, Persons Unknown, The Answer, and the Corner. These are then divided into untitled chapters. The point-of-view switches between various characters such as Mr. Clutter, Nancy, Perry, Dick, Detective Dewey, etc. The Last to See Them Alive The story begins in the sleepy town of Holcomb, Kansas, where Herbert Clutter wakes up on the last day of his life. Nancy (his daughter) gets a call from her friend Susan, and discusses her…

and details about the characters. As Capote is describing the town of Holcomb, the people living there, and the Clutter family, he is also going back to Dick and Perry. At first Capote gives detailed descriptions of the Clutter and people in their lives, and spends a lot of time developing their characters. When he goes back to Dick and Perry, Capote does not reveal much about their characters. He reveals where the characters are and what they are currently doing. Also Capote didn’t depict the…

particular Perry Smith, one of the people responsible for the murders. Truman Capote had many visits and conversations with Perry Smith and this led him to raise the question of whether a man alone can be held responsible for his actions when his environment has taken away so much of him and what is essential to a human being. One view to explore is the psyche of Perry Smith developed through out the theme by Capote “Nature vs. Nurture”. (Olin-Scheller 154) This being the idea that Perry Smith…

questions about many of the smaller details that Capote chose to write about. For example, many of the dialogues and scenes may have been made up, to help strengthen his argument against capital punishment. One such conversation can be found right before Perry and Dick were sentenced to death. Two men were discussing the penalty that they deserved, and while one argued that death was the only option because they “killed four people in cold blood” the other argued that hanging both of them was…

the Clutters were profiting. However, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith were not experiencing the similar good fortune. Through the 6 years of interviews and general plot Capote shows what can happen when someone wants what everyone else has, but no means to attain it. In Cold Blood demonstrates how the American Dream can cause an obsessive pursuit of wealth and juvenile fantasies leading down a path of self-destruction. “Dick Hickock and Perry Smith's plan to rob the Clutter family was to be…

Hickock and Perry Smith; fugitives convicted of murder. They are subjective failures of subjective expectations of subjective justifications. He explains Perry as “an urchin dependent, so to say, on…

Perry Smith has dreamed of seeing his name on newspaper headlines, wishing to be written of as a musical prodigy loved by all. It is the year 1960, and Perry can be found on newspapers all across America, but Perry isn’t known for making great music. Instead, Perry Smith is topping headlines because of a crime he committed: the murder of the Clutters. In the book In Cold Blood, the author Truman Capote gives insight into the parts of Perry never seen before; his darkest secrets, grandest…