Analysis Of ' Black Boots With Steel Buckles '

On Detective Nye’s hunt for Perry and Dick he talks to Perry’s sister Mrs, Johnson. Mrs, Johnson is scared, scared of Perry. Her feelings towards Perry is a scared connotation, “‘But I’m afraid of him. I always have been. He can seem so warm-hearted and sympathetic. Gentle. He cries so easily. Sometimes music sets him off, and when he was a little boy he used to cry because he thought the sunset was beautiful. Or the moon. Oh, he can fool you. He can make you feel so sorry for him’...but was it simply Perry she feared, or was it a configuration of which he was part---the terrible

6.Perry’s physical physique is demonstrated through the use of comparison to a weightlifter and a jockey. Capote explains that the top of his body is sturdy and strong (because he does in fact lift weights). As for his legs, they were skinny and “would have neatly fitted into a delicate lady’s dancing slippers”. Perry is then compared to a retired jockey because he is “overblown and muscle-bound”.

Through the poignant detail of Perry’s troubled and complex temperament, Capote’s subtly manipulative diction in In Cold Blood sculpts the murderer into a sympathetic character. In Perry’s first appearance, the criminal was said to be “no taller than a twelve-year-old child” (15) standing tall. Starkly contrasted to the stereotypical image of a murderer, “Little Perry” (55) is depicted with descriptors that blunts the sharp, preconceived edge of his homicidal nature. He is described innocently, youthfully, as if untouched by the dark horrors he was known to commit. Diction such as “sentimental” (54), “dreamer” (54), and “liked moonlight” (265) forcibly reveals a softer side to Perry. His artistic nature— the softer side of beauty, emotion, and wistfulness— coincides with the homicidal nature that drove him to kill four innocent people.

The persona that Capote is able to capture about Perry Smith shows that Perry was someone who really thought about things even when he doesn’t want to. He particularly has issues letting go of the fact that they had just murdered the Clutters. “I think there must be something wrong with us,” (110, In Cold Blood). He cannot let go of the fact that there might be something mentally wrong with them because of what they have done.

Although he saw the atrocities committed by Perry and was strongly in favor of his hanging, it “aroused another response, for Perry possessed a quality, the aura of an exiled animal, a creature walking wounded, that the detective could not disregard” (341). Capote includes this unexpected emotion to demonstrate the extreme pity a person completely against Perry could feel, which, in result, is meant to produce a greater sense of empathy for the reader, sympathizing with the detective. Sympathy can be gained toward this person who executed a happy family, proving how worthy this book is due to its life lesson.

Although Perry commits a ghastly offense he still contains another compassionate side to him, Capote’s importance is to tell readers Perry can be sweet too, therefore; he contends even though a person commits a crime doesn’t mean they are inferior.

This contrast can first be seen in the descriptions of Herbert Clutter, the father of the Clutter family, who was “cut a man’s-man figure. His shoulders were broad… his square-jawed confident face retained a healthy-hued youthfulness,” (Capote 6) and Dick Hickock, “his face, which seemed composed of mismatching parts… the lips were slightly aslant, the nose askew, and his eyes not only situated at uneven levels but of uneven size,” (Capote 31) and Perry Smith, “his chunky, dwarfish legs, broken in five places and pitifully scarred, still pained him so severely,” (Capote 31). Mr. Clutter, in perfect health condition, was considered to be traditionally “handsome”. Whereas Dick and Perry both are scarred by prior vehicle crashes with some part of their body maimed and permanently changed for the worse as a result. As well as littered with tattoos across their face and arms, they are, in a sense, the exact opposite of Mr. Clutter. Due to Mr. Clutter being described with positive traits the reader is more likely to trust, and therefore sympathize with him. In direct opposition to how Dick and Perry were described with mostly negative traits. The reader is less likely to trust them, but instead pin them as the “bad guys” without any knowledge of their past or their future actions. These completely opposing descriptions of the three men serve to set the foundation, or

Perry Smith was a short man with a large torso. At first glance, “he seemed a more normal-sized man, a powerful man, with the shoulders, the arms, the thick, crouching torso of a weight lifter. [However] when he stood up he was no taller than a twelve-year old

The brutal diction and sadistic atmosphere that picturize Perry’s childhood leads the audience to revisit their initial impression of him. With a further glimpse into the man’s background, Capote can continue his focus on providing a larger picture. In order to expand on Perry, Capote builds off of his physical trauma and discusses the emotional trauma that he had to face concerning his parents and siblings. His parents were separated and his mom became drunk who did not care for him and eventually he had a falling out with his father and with the multiple deaths of his siblings, Perry Smith revisited these memories many times. His sister, Fern-Joy was a drunk who “fell from the window of a hotel room. Falling she struck a theater marquee, bounced off it, and rolled under the wheels of a taxi” (116), his brother Jimmy “who had one day driven his wife to suicide and killed himself the next” (69), and his mother, “an alcoholic, had strangled to death on her own vomit” (69). According to Capote, such drastic changes had lead Perry to some serious changes in which human life is not something important and is simply expendable. As the writer, he does not believe that Perry’s involvement in the Clutter murder is forgivable but rather, compassion and sympathy should be shown toward him due to his unfortunate circumstances. Additionally, Capote believes that there should be an acknowledgement of

After being unable to live with his family any longer, Perry was taken in by nuns. However, he was not treated much better in the nuns’ cottage; he was often viciously beaten due to the result of some uncontrollable medical conditions (275). The violent reaction of the nuns to something completely out of Perry’s control was incentive for Perry to hate humanity. It was because of the way Perry was treated and his childhood experiences that he inevitably became wicked; he was not born into the world as an evil person.

A contrast of Perry's feelings is magnified through an imagery of juxtaposition. The two different ideas are placed side by side to enhance the purpose of the differentiation of Perry's thinking. On one hand, he thought of himself as who he wants to be without the event of the murder, he was dreaming of what could have been: “The dream’s geographical center was a Las Vegas nightclub where, wearing a white top hat and a white tuxedo, he strutted about a spotlighted stage playing a harmonica…” (Capote 319). He dreamt to follow his dreams as people watched him succeed. But, on the other hand, he finds himself caught up thinking about who he is in actuality- a cold blooded murderer and the consequences that will happen to him because of that: “Staring at them, the perspiring entertainer at last understood their silence, for suddenly he knew that these were phantoms, the ghosts of the legally annihilated, the hanged, the

Therefore, Capote successfully convinces readers that Perry’s nature is not completely guilty of the murder, but the way he nurtured was. To continue on, Capote utilizes diction to highlight positive side that Perry has in order to convince readers that Perry is not 100% evil. During the conversation with Perry, Dewey thought it is possible to see Perry without anger. “with, rather, a measure of sympathy --for Perry Smith’s life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another”(Capote 246). In this quote, Capote utilizes diction to convince readers about Perry’s horrible past and how environment manipulated little Perry’s life that made him commit crime over and over again.

Another passage that helps to reflect Perry and his word choice is the following paragraph, “It takes me longer to learn something, but when I do, I learn it good” (Wood, 6%). This is another example of Perry's simple word choice due to borderline intellectual disability, but this quote also shows Perry has a hard time learning key concepts of how to function in the wood, but can eventually learn to master tasks. Some of these tasks may be learning to use an air compressor, and once he eventually learns how to do these tasks he feels great joy and accomplishment. Another major character in the story is Perry's Grandma, or Gram. Gram seems to have a word choice that shows that she is a person who has worked hard for what she has, and she hold strong traditional values usually attached to around the time period of the Baby Boomers generation. This quote showing this being the following, “Those blue jeans, Perry! Women get all kinds of diseases from them. It’s better to wear a good cotton dress from Kmart” (Wood,

His sneakers worn down almost to

Kinky Boots is a stunningly flashy Broadway musical that tugs on the heartstrings with its equally stunning clichés. With its plot originally conceived as a British film in 2005, the stage production was not produced until 2012 and was based on the book written by Harvey Fierstein. Furthermore, the show did not find its way to Broadway until 2013. When it debuted, the show opened to critical acclaim with Billy Porter and Stark Sands originating the roles of lead characters Lola and Charlie. Since its Broadway debut, Kinky Boots has been a smashing commercial success. Over the years, Kinky Boots has swapped out the actors in its cast many times. However, the original leading actors of the show, Billy Porter and Stark Sands, have returned once again to play Lola and Charlie in 2017.