In his bestselling novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote narrates the story of the murder of the Clutter family from Holcomb, Kansas. In November 15, 1959; Herb, Bonnie, Nancy, and Kenyon Clutter were murdered at their own home by two men that had never spoken a word to the family. Capote follows the story of Perry Edward Smith and Richard Eugene “Dick” Hickock; murderers of the Clutter family.
The criminals flee to Mexico after killing four people in Kansas. They don't stay there long though, their money runs out and they need to go back to the United States. When packing up to leave Mexico, Perry finds a manuscript written by his dad that tells the story about Perry's life. It talks about Perry's siblings and how his oldest brother (Jimmy) killed himself because his wife did the same, his sister jumped off of a building`s window and his other sister was the only one who was able to get married and raise a family. The manuscript depicts Perry`s life as a soldier who fought in Korea and how his life was while living in Alaska during his teenage years. Later in 1958, Perry's sister Barbara wrote him a letter while Perry was in jail, the letter intended to be a “compassionate demonstration of Christian principles” and depicted the fact that Perry never cared about his family; but instead ignored them. Both Perry and Dick end up in the Mojave Desert in hopes of finding a ride to California.
Back in Kansas, Floyd Wells confesses to the police that he knows the people responsible for the Clutter´s murder. Wells had worked for Herb Clutter in 1949 and had shared a cell with Dick Hickock at Kansas State Penitentiary, where he told Dick about the Clutter`s wealth and about the existence of a supposed safe in Herb`s office. Dick had then admitted to Floyd that Perry and him were planning on robbing the residence and kill the Clutters in order of leaving no witnesses. Working at the Kansas Bureau Investigation, Harold Nye interviews Dick`s parents and Perry`s sister in hopes of knowing the killers` location at the moment. At Holcomb, Alvin Adams Dewey; agent of Kansas City, gathers information about Perry and Dick in order to help with the case.
Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are able to go back to California but, when no work comes up for them; the only place they can go back to is Kansas City.
“But we have very little control over our human weaknesses, and this applies also to Fern and the hundreds of thousands of other people including ourselves- for we all have weaknesses.” (Capote, 140)
These are not Capote´s words, which surprised me. Desperate to help her brother and make him reflect about his actions, Barbara writes a letter to Perry in which she reflects hers and Perry´s lives altogether. She mentions the fact that Perry has not come to admit his mistakes- or weaknesses, and that he does not seem sorry for being in prison. Perry knows what he did wrong, he just doesn't consider them failures or weaknesses like his sister does. What Barbara considers to be “human weaknesses”, Perry considers to be failures of those who are weak. Perhaps that is why Perry was able to murder a whole family. Barbara on the other side, hopes that her brother will someday think just like her and will apologize for all the supposed wrongdoings he has done in his life.
“There is considerable hypocrisy in conventionalism.” (Capote, 144)
Willie-Jay (Perry´s only “true friend”) is a truly remarkable individual. Too bad he ended up in jail because he had a bright future ahead. He wrote Perry a letter titled “Impressions I Garnered From The Letter” in which Willie-Jay depicted his opinion of the letter from Barbara. He believes that the reason behind all of the siblings´disagreements are because Perry does not fulfil Barbara´s definition of “conventional”. I think that this term varies across the world and across families and communities. I think that morals, geographical location, and perhaps economical and ethical background define our term of “conventional”. Willie-Jay considers conventionalism hypocritical because of the fact that people usually lie to fit in these definitions, what ever they might be. But, what is Willie-Jay´s definition of “conventional”? Does he consider himself “conventional”?
Sadly, the murderers still haven't been caught. I'm still hoping for the actual description of Perry and Dick´s arrest. I hope that in the next chapters, the actual arrest will take place and I will finally know their intentions and thoughts while killing a whole family. I'm also glad that the book offers a lot of stories from Perry's childhood since it makes it able to imagine life from his own perspective. These stories show me that no life is perfect and that we all have dreams and goals we will like to accomplish. Perry had a dream about being saved by a yellow bird just before being eaten by a snake (is not as half as weird as it sounds), but I guess we all have crazy dreams sometimes.
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