Character Analysis Of Truman Capote In In True Blood

From a young age, children are told not to lie and to always be truthful. Children are told that even a little white lie can blossom into a heap of problems. We teach children this and yet we lie every day. We lie when we tell them every lie will turn against them, because that’s not always true. Some lies are beneficial, like Santa and the Easter Bunny, on the other hand, some lies can seriously hurt people, like blaming another person for a problem you caused. The trick is to find the balance between what is beneficial and what is going to hurt someone. Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood rides that line causing much controversy over his book. Although Capote brilliantly illustrates the vicious murders of the Clutter family, he ruins the story with his inaccuracies and lies by wrongfully portraying the characters, incorrectly claiming to have created a new genre of writing, and not acknowledging that he altered facts and events.

Capote talks about the lives of both killers previous to the murders in fairly significant detail. In the case of Perry Smith, his parents divorced early in his childhood and neither his mother nor father really wanted him. This produced feelings of abandonment and uselessness early on in Perry and affected the rest of his life. Capote brings up a letter written to the Kansas State Penitentiary about Perry by Perry's father, who was trying to have Perry paroled for a previous crime he had committed. Perry says that "this biography always set racing a series of emotions--self pity in the lead, love and hate evenly at first, the latter ultimately pulling ahead" (130). Perry didn't feel as though his father ever knew him very well, or even wanted to know him. He says, "whole sections of my Dad was ignorant of. Didn't understand an iota of...I had this great natural musical ability. Which Dad didn't recognize. Or care about...I never got any encouragement from him or anybody else" (133). When Perry's father threw him out of the house one evening because his father could no longer afford to have Perry live with him, Perry lost his sense of direction in life. He even says

What the readers know of Dick’s past is very little, as Capote works to characterize him through flashbacks the readers know it was his plan to kill the Clutters and he does have some family “there were those Dick claimed to love: three sons, a mother, a father, a brother—persons he hadn’t dare confide his plan to(Capote 106).” But Capote characterizes Dick more so through descriptions of his habits than through his memories. “Inez was a prostitute…she was eighteen and Dick had promised to marry her. But he had also promised to marry Maria, a women of fifty who was a widow of a very rich banker(Capote 118-119)” Dick is shown throughout the book as someone who uses people to get what he wants, he calls on Perry to help him with his plan, he uses women for sex and money while making promises he never intends to keep. “If he knew Dick, and he did—now he did—would spend the money right away on vodka and women(Capote 119). Capote does not draw any sympathy from the readers, Dick is perceived as an emotionless man who pretends to believe in people and want the same

Besides using anecdotes and stories from his childhood, Capote also used analogies to invoke a sense of sympathy for Perry, thus further using the means of pathos. In specific, a constant ‘comparison’ or analogy coupled with Perry is typically his ‘childish’ like structure. Short legs, small feet. This analogy is used constantly, including the hanging scene, where it is said Dewey had “open his eyes [and] saw the same childish feet, tilted, dangling”(Capote 341). This comparison is seen often when describing Perry and seems to give the man a childlike presence, making him come across as more innocent and understandable. This connection to Perry takes away from the ‘severity’ of his actions and instead reminds readers of his childhood and how it has affected him all through life. Using pathos to soften the personality of a killer and bring to life his struggles helped Capote to better exemplify the ‘makings’ of a murderer. When creating this book, Capote wanted to analyze how a murder came to be and thus how a murderer came to exist - in particular, Perry. The use of pathos in correlation to one of the main characters helped break down the hostile killer into a damaged, young, sensible young man who simply had a tough go at life. The device allowed for connection and personalization.

Truman Capote includes finite details such as Perry’s middle name, and goes down to even the name of the county that Perry was born and grew up in to appeal to his audience’s logic. By giving more detail to Perry’s past life, the audience is able to better grasp the image of Perry, which humanizes the murderer, and is more likely to create an emotion of sympathy towards the criminal and alter the audience’s view on capital punishment. This information is irrelevant to the plot, however, is very strong in supporting Capote’s argument.

Although Dick and Perry may both be killers, Capote uses language to portray Perry as a victim of Dick;therefore, Perry is seen through the eyes of the reader as an innocent man who was simply taken advantage of and molded into a killer by Dick.

Following the emotionally ‘flat’ perspective by Dick, is Perry’s self-pity attitude during his own chapter. Perry knows the annoyance of his voice to Dick, but has no control over his actions. With only having one thought repeated indefinitely, “I think there must be something wrong with us” (capote 30), one would need to vent in some manner. To continue, Perry’s pity persona even has the author himself take pity on him: “Look at his family!” (Capote 30). Capote demands the reader to acknowledge Perry’s grim adolescence and suicidal family: “His mother, an alcoholic, had strangled to death on her own vomit...Fern...jumped out a window...Jimmy...had one day driven his wife to suicide and killed himself the next” (Capote 30). Capote pities Perry and portrays him as human, instead of the monster everyone believes him to be. Capote explains how Perry’s mental state and upcoming is the reason he is mentally unstable. Capote exposes not all criminals are monsters. Referring back to Dick’s passage, Dick claims “Perry could be “such a kid,” always wetting the bed and crying in his sleep” (Capote 29). Perry never matured from his depressing childhood, and he remained a in this state into adulthood. Returning to Perry’s

The most dominant strategy that Capote utilizes in order to achieve his purpose is pathos, as he plays on our emotions to get us to feel true sympathy for Perry Smith. This is strategy is overall the most effective one because it allows the viewers to perceive Perry differently. Capote mentions Perry’s abusive and neglectful childhood several times throughout the story’s course in order to make the readers feel empathic, and pitiful towards him. In one instance of the novel, Capote makes out Perry as a hero in a way. He sets up a picture of the killers at the beach, and he mentions how uncomfortable Perry is when he sees Dick talking to a young girl. He describes another instance like this when he says, “Hadn’t they almost got in a fight when quite recently he had prevented Dick from raping a terrified girl” (Capote 202). Perry is willing to stand up to his partner when he comes to situations like this. Readers can’t help but view Perry as a hero in his own way as he protects the young girls from Dick’s pedophilic mind. Capote plays on the assumption that everyone hates child predators, which is almost always true. In a way, Capote makes us feel admiration for Perry’s heroic effort in protecting the innocent, as he “prevented Dick” from doing something horrible. As Perry confesses his crime to Dewey and Duntz, he admits, “But I hoped we could do it without violence” (234). This is one of several moments where the readers get a sense of reluctance from Perry to commit the crime. Although Perry did eventually

In addition Capote also uses irony to show Perrys blindness to Dicks malipulation. As Perry describes Dick, and his smooth ways, he states “Christ, it was incredible how he could ‘con a guy’”(Capote 97). Perry realizes Dick is a con but he is to captivated by Dick to see that he is being played. Since Dick is such a malicious, manipulative person and Perry is vulnerable it is easy fro Dick to take advantage of Perry. This happens without Perry's knowledge because Perry is to engrossed in the fact that he finally fits in with

Truman Capote put a lot of thought into this writing and in order to change the way people looked at this almost new type of writing, he decided to demonstrate pathos in order to do this. In the novel when talking about the murders Perry said, “I didn’t want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat.” (204). Right here Capote almost makes you feel bad for Perry and tries to show that Perry really is not an evil person and almost did not want to commit the murders. Now this supports his purpose because nobody tries to make the reader feel bad for the murderers. They are usually viewed as evil, disturbed people yet Perry is almost looked upon as someone who is not evil and almost as just someone who was forced into this. Nobody ever feels bad for a murderer yet in this novel, almost everyone starts to feel bad for them. Which really changes the way people write these types of novels and at the time seemed very unorthodox. Capote also makes people sympathize for the murderer by having Perry talk about his background. Perry says, “‘What she used to do, she’d fill a tub with ice-cold water, put me in it, and hold me under till I was blue. Nearly drowned. But she got found out, the bitch. Because I caught pneumonia. I was so sick that Dad came back. When I got well, he took me away’” (132). Now with almost every murderer they have a very rough upbringing yet people still do not

Early on, Capote makes Smith seem a more sympathetic character, “Yes, and he had told Dick was true… Sierra Madre?” (Capote, 17). Capote makes Perry seem almost childlike as he describes Perry’s naive plan to search for gold in the Sierra Madre, which causes the reader to wrongly assume Smith is innocent, or at least more so than Hickock. While describing the murder of the Clutter family, Perry states, “And I thought… So I went back upstairs,” (277). Truman Capote deliberately includes Perry’s feeling that “It was like [he] wasn’t a part of it. More as though [he] was reading a story,” to show the level of dissociation Perry experiences. Even after Smith is found guilty of murder, the reader still feels some sympathy for Perry as Capote hints that Perry cannot be held accountable for his own actions. Just before he is hanged, Smith remarks, “It would be meaningless to apologize for what I did. Even inappropriate. But I do. I apologize,” (392-393). Capote includes Perry’s last words, which carry significant emotional weight, to evoke a final sympathetic reaction in the reader. Through Perry Smith, Capote creates pathos to demonstrate the harsh nature of capital punishment and cause the reader to wonder if it is the right

Capote uses Perry as a sympathetic character; asking the reader if Perry’s life had been easier growing up, would he have committed the murders? A point often overlooked is Capote’s detailed exploration into Perry’s childhood and life

Aren’t we all a bit crazy at times? In Truman Capote’s rhetorical masterpiece, In Cold Blood, is about a murder that actually occurred in a small town in Kansas. Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, also known as Dick and Perry, are the criminal minds behind the murder. Capote’s work is regarded to as a masterpiece because he uses many rhetorical devices to convey his message. He uses rhetorical devices such as diction, imagery and pathos. Capote’s purpose for writing the book is to show the insights of what goes on in these two’s criminal minds and to humanize Perry.

The second most important rhetorical strategy Capote used is logos. Many people probably think that logos is the most important rhetorical strategy- but I disagree. You need logos to accurately tell all sides of the story, yes, but you need pathos to make it truly worth reading, in my opinion. Pathos is what makes it interesting, it draws out your emotions, leaves you hanging on every word, making you never want to put down the book. Logos is extremely important,

Truman Capote forms a close relationship with convicted murderer, Perry Smith, and allows his own personal perception of Perry to influence his story. Capote repeatedly puts emphasis on the fact that Perry comes from a troubled background and