Mental Health In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

As a whole, literature on the topic of mental illness in our country and specifically in our criminal justice system had a reoccurring theme. There are millions of individuals who suffer from mental illness but are improperly being handled through the criminal justice system. These individuals are deemed criminal just by their acts and their mental health state is not overly examine. Jails and prisons are being overcrowded. State prisons and jails are overpopulated anywhere from 15 to 32% (Spending Money in All the Wrong Places: Jails & Prisons).

Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood with the intention of creating a new non-fiction genre, a creative spin on a newspaper article with the author, and his opinions and judgments completely absent from the text, leaving only the truth for the reader to interpret. The pages of In Cold Blood are filled with facts and first-hand accounts of the events surrounding the brutal murder of a wealthy unsuspecting family in Holcomb, Kansas. Author Truman Capote interviewed countless individuals to get an accurate depiction of every one affected by and every side of the murder. Although he declares himself an unbiased and opinion-free author, based on the extensive descriptions of one of the murderers, Perry Smith, there is much debate about this

When we hear about a killing on the news, our natural instincts are to immediately antagonize the killers. More likely than not, we hate the killers, and hope they get a vengeful prison sentence. In Truman Capote’s true crime non-fiction book, In Cold Blood, we learn about the murders that took place in Holcomb. The story is about much more than the slaying of a respectful family, its focus is on the killers, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. One of Capote’s main purposes in the book is to convey the multiple perspectives of a crime in order for the readers to view the killers as more than just the bad guys, and he achieves his purpose primarily through the use of pathos, anecdotes, and his chosen narrative.

In Truman Capote’s book In Cold Blood, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith commit a murder of all four Clutter family members with no apparent motive. They go all over the United States running from the authorities, while also passing bad checks. They are later caught in Las Vegas and sentenced to death row by a jury comprised of family men that were associated with the Clutter’s. Many years go by before they are hung on April 14, 1965. Considering that Perry Smith had many mental problems that most likely have developed from his early childhood, he should be tried with his disorders in mind and given psychiatric care.

The best novels are the ones that connects with the reader and just toys with their emotions, as if they too were also in the story by using pathos, the most powerful appeal. This holds true with Truman Capote’s, In Cold Blood and his writing appealing to the reader’s emotions in the portrayal of Perry Edward Smith and Richard “Dick” Eugene Hickock, the two murders with an addition of Capote showing a great deal of favoritism to Perry over Dick. Throughout the novel, Capote uses tone and diction to allure the reader into the novel’s world and into every character’s life, just as if we knew their whole backstory.

In the first chapter of “In Cold Blood”, Truman Capote switches between stories of the Clutter family, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. This transition allows Capote to focus on multiple accounts at once, and to connect the lives of the Clutter family to their killers. Dick and Perry are two essential characters in the first chapter as the beginning is told from Perry’s view. Dick Hickock is an uneducated somewhat charming man who didn't regret killing the Clutters. His “friendship” with Perry is mostly based on the lie that Perry killed someone with a bicycle chain. Perry could be described as relaxed and mild in temperament. Although he isn't well educated, he wants to gain knowledge. Dick

Between one% and five% of our population molest children. Dick Hickock was that one-five%. In Cold Blood written by Truman Capote is about the killing of the Clutter family that happened in Holcomb Kansas. In 1959, Perry Smith and Richard (Dick) Hickock traveled to Kansas to initially rob the Clutter home, but their intentions were to leave “no witnesses”. During all of that, Hickock had a very disgusting secret. He is interested in younger girls. Hickock had a past in regards to having an attraction to young women and girls. This is shown in his previous marriages, both of his ex-wives were the age of sixteen, he tried raping Nancy Clutter before killing her, and while in Florida he was going to try to seduce a girl that was twelve years old.

In the novel In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, one of the themes revealed is self-delusion. Self-delusion causes people to attempt to gain a sense of satisfaction through unnecessary means while causing harm to other people. Capote uses the word “normal” and symbols like the treasure map and safe to display the concept of self-delusion. Capote mentions in the novel, “That he [Dick] knew what he was doing and still went ahead with it…” (Capote 294). Dick was truly a sane and normal man as he had described himself to be. However, he believed in the false impression that his actions of killing and then being able to get away with the horrendous crime through the stolen money from the safe is a deception. On the other hand, Perry’s thoughts displays

Imagine two people, both the same race, both the same gender, and they both committed the same crime. The two people are on trial for their crime, but instead of getting the same punishment, one gets the death penalty while the other gets 15 years. To think that the outcome should be the same, however there are more than one factors that play into a person receiving the death penalty and they are not always considered fair. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, displays a situation where Perry Smith commits a violent crime, and is charged with the death penalty instead of serving years in prison. Some might argue that his crime was vicious enough for him to receive death, but who gave them the power to decide whether to take someone’s life?

In the eyes of medical personnel it is an assumption that antipsychotic drugs could compensate for mental illness, which typically takes long periods of time to thoroughly diagnose, and thus there is no incentive to attempt to correct for the mental illness since there is no guarantee of recovery. The attempt to medicate the offender in order to terminate his life is basically a waste of the tax payer’s money. The decision should be made to either label him as mentally ill, medicate him in order to make him better so that he might live a sane life or to terminate his life due to the extremities of his crime. The main goal of capital punishment is the forfeiture of the offenders participation in society by means of termination of life and that terminating a life does not require any special condition to undergo there is no conclusive need to ensure the healthy condition of an offender who is subject to termination of life. If the health of the offender is irrelevant then it can also be stated that the current state of mental illness has no bearing on the proceedings and there is no need to correct this situation prior to execution with a medication. (Grinfeld, M,

After hearing the interactive orals, I was able to understand and interpret In Cold Blood with greater perspective than before. Although I do live in Kansas I have never heard of Holcomb. Honestly, I have never even been to any part of western Kansas in my life. Learning about the environment of a small town helped me realize why this murder affected the town and even the entire nation in such an extreme manner. In this day and age, people are constantly terrified of the people around them which is why we lock our doors every night. However, back in the 1950s and 1960s, people felt safe in their homes and especially felt safe in a small town. The murder of the Clutter family and Truman Capote’s publication of it changed the culture of the United

In viewing the Movie, Capote I was very surprised at the tactics Truman Capote used to gain his qualitative research for his non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood. Prior to viewing this movie for this class, I had read this book and had seen the movie when it first came out. At that time, I felt as though both movie and book were wonderful, however when I viewed this movie with the knowledge I have gained thus far in this course I was bothered by how Truman conducted his research.

Some may argue that Capote’s use of leaving out facts will make you questioned if his narrative was really truthful. People may question his reason for leaving certain details out and question his reason for adding other details in. Capote wrote the book to make it interesting some facts were included, however some parts of the story were added on to make the story more amusing (Keefe). A way people can look at the story is it is based on a true story the four members of the Clutter family were murdered and the murders did get executed, however all journalist and authors write novels and articles to sell (Keefe). They want to sell the people entertaining books and articles not just sell them just the story.

Given the circumstances of the case we may just be getting introduced to a potential murderer. The issue at matter is that the man that has been accused of murder may not have been in full mental health at the time of the action. We are deciphering if he is mentally stable to be convicted of murder or if he should be sent to a correctional facility. Although the man confessed to the murder, he may not have been mentally responsible for the act in question. Given the circumstances of the mans mental state we are concerned considering he himself said that he has a “disease”.

“Unsoundness of mind or lack of the ability to understand that prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or that releases one from criminal or civil responsibility”(Merriam-Webster) The definition of insanity. What does it mean to be insane? What makes a person become insane? These are all questions that have potentially many answers, but they will be answered in the following paragraphs.