Perry Smith Character Analysis

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

Capote creates sympathy for Smith in the reader by comparing him to a wounded animal, a creature who is not able to be responsible for his actions, an outcast from society, and a "psychic cripple" (Hollowell 83). These character traits are added to the book to advance the dramatic heightening. Both killers are given sympathy and are treated as individuals by Capote to bring it beyond the average thriller novel (Hollowell 83).

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

As a child Perry grew up with a limited education. When he is young and after his parent’s divorce Perry is living with his dad and is going to school. He finishes grade three but after that he never returns. Perry’s father moves from state to state throughout his childhood and prevents Perry from returning to school. Perry’s father wants Perry to stay with him instead of going to school so he can do work and take care of him. As Perry grows older however he understands that his father kept him out of school and Perry becomes extremely angry with him. Smith stated, “That bastard never gave me a chance. He wouldn’t let me go to school…. he didn’t want me to learn anything, only how to tote and carry for him. Dumb. Ignorant. That’s the way he wanted me to be. So that I could never escape him” (Capote 185). However, Perry is an intelligent and talented man with great potential. He has natural music ability, he likes to read and improve his vocabulary, and he also knows how to draw. In spite of this he never received encouragement from his father or anyone else: “Oh, the man I could have been! ... But the time came I begged to go to school. I happen to have a brilliant

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

The reader gets to “know” Perry Smith very well throughout the novel and acquires the sense that Capote feels sympathetic to his situation as compared to that of Hickock. Smith, introduced as much the loner type, is described by the narrator and the character Smith himself (in a letter to a psychiatrist) as growing up in a low socio-economic bracket with a broken family accompanied by a lack of love and stability characterizing his childhood (and continuing on to adulthood in which is the state of which the book...

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

We see two heartless, cold blooded killers that slain the innocent family of the Clutters with the intent to leave no witnesses and to rob them of their hard earned money but Capote deceives the reader's emotions throughout the entirety of the book to humanize straight killers and make them likable. We often see a murderer as a psychopath without any emotion but it is hard to label Smith and Hickock one because Capote brings the reader into their lives in a way that we would feel sorry and have pity for them. Capote makes the reader relate to Smith and Hickock by describing their families and showing insight into the killers’ dreams and aspirations so we could perceive them as people and forget that they ended the future of the Clutters. Perry was a lonely child growing up and had a drunkard mother that forced him into foster care where he was abused and bullied

Diction supports Capote’s purpose because he uses it to vividly describe the murderers. His diction also shows readers how complex their minds really are and how Perry is really just an ordinary human. As readers meet the murderers, Capote describes Perry as such, “His tiny feet, encased in short black boots with steel buckles, would have neatly fitted into a delicate lady’s dancing slippers; when he stood up, he was no taller than a twelve-year-old child, and suddenly looked, strutting on stunted legs that seemed grotesquely inadequate to the grown-up bulk they supported, not like a well-built truck driver but like a retired jockey, overblown, and muscle bound,” (Capote 15). Capote describes Perry as “no taller than a twelve-year-old” which indicates how he is not some big, dangerous man who murders on the daily. His word choice of “grotesquely inadequate” also connotes how Perry is not strong and can barely support his weight. This makes readers feel sympathy for Perry, which therefore humanizes Perry as not a criminal. Capote also writes how he is more like a “retired jockey” which denotes how he is just a normal guy who has been through life just like anyone else. The word choice makes readers believe Perry is just like anyone else, a normal human being with faults. A second effect of diction is when Capote includes Dr. Jones’ diction to emphasize how Perry’s criminal mind thinks. As Dr. Jones is describing Perry’s mental state he says, “ More extensive evaluation would be necessary to make an exact psychiatric diagnosis, but his presence personality structure is very nearly that of a paranoid schizophrenic reaction,” (Capote 298). Capote

Perry Smith came from a very dysfunctional family. Growing up Perry was never taught right from wrong. His parents divorced after years of domestic violence, his mother became an alcoholic. Due to the stresses at home he is a cronique run-away. He was “in and out of detention homes many times” (277); an orphanage. The cottage mistress severely beats and humiliates Smith for wetting the bed. During Smith’s teen years two of his sibling’s committed suicide, and the surviving sibling refusing to interact with him. Smith was angry, conflicted, and scarred by years of abuse. Taking the opportunities his adulthood gave him to act out against the world that hurt him.

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