Perry Smith's Nature And Nurture

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.

For example, Capote describes Smith by saying “His sensitive eyes gazed gravely at the surrounding faces.” By using words like “sensitive” and “gravely”, Truman Capote implies that Perry was remorseful and fragile due to the murders of the Clutters.(340,3) Another use of imagery used to persuade the feeling of empathy for Perry is by describing his tragic childhood, “And, indeed, over the course of the next three years Perry had on several occasions runoff, set out to find his lost father, for he had lost his mother as well, learned to ‘despise’ her; liquor had blurred the face, swollen the figure of the once sinewy, limber cherokee girl had ‘soured her soul’, honed her tongue to the wickedest point. ”(131,2) Capote uses a lengthy description of Perry’s mother, which forces the feeling of empathy on you.

Nature Vs Nurture is often the huge debate in psychology when it comes to determining and understanding individual’s characteristics traits. Nature is hereditary to our behavior while nurture is based on our environmental influences. Although most argue whether or not nature or nurture defines our characteristics, I believe both have an impact on we are.

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote is a novel that explains the history of a family murder through two characters perspective. Capote unravels each character through the concept of juxtapose, which helps prevail the occurrence of events. Dick, is a very straight forward man that does not care about what others think. Whereas, Perry has a shy, conserved personality that is shown through transitions and details. Juxtapose effects the readers and characters as explained throughout the novel by comparing and contrasting two different characters opinions.Details are shown on every page and are illustrated in every sentence, which gives the reader the image. In Cold Blood represents the development of characters, juxtapose, transitions and details.

The novel The Other Wes Moore was written by Wes Moore and it speaks upon, two boys with the same name but both have different fates. The Other Wes Moore touch's base on how the environment and experience can shape an person. The book allows you to follow two young boys named Wes Moore who tend to make life changing decisions that in the long run shape and effect their future. The purpose behind this phenomenal novel is to understand the pain and struggle to overcome the streets and how the streets can raise you and change you as a person. Furthermore, allowing you to foreshadow your thoughts of how your environment and experience can shape who you become. The environment we live in does play a significant role in our growth in life. Nature and nurture can effect individual success in different aspects. In the novel The Other Wes Moore the author Wes uses narrative elements such as parallelism and characterization to describe and tell both Wes's stories.

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

Nature or Nurture. Nature may be all of the genes and hereditary factors with which influence them to become who they are such as physical appearances and personality characteristics. Nurturing impacts people’s lives as well as how they are raised and all the environmental factors. In combination, these qualities can be the true identity of oneself. Many people may argue that nurture appears to a play huge factor in the two, but others may think otherwise. Not having both as a characteristic can have a negative effect on a person physically and mentally. The debate of nature versus nurture appears to be the oldest argument known to man, and it still remains to be unanswered. In the old-age argument nature versus nurture, nature may play a huge role in determining a person’s true identity.

In the reality-based novel In Cold Blood written by American novelist Truman Capote, Capote utilizes juxtaposing polysyndeton, hypersensitive pathos, and sympathetic logos to paint convicted murderer Perry as the victim of a mental illness rather than a cold-blooded killer. Throughout the novel, Capote strategically persuades the reader that Perry is more of a victim than a perpetrator.

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

The historical debate regarding nature and nurture has been going on for years and is still unresolved. Many theorists believe what we have inherited and our genes, makes us the way we are and how we develop. Other theorists believe it is the way we are brought up and our experiences, that make us the way we are and how we develop.

Another theme throughout In Cold Blood is the attraction of opposite personalities between Hickock and Smith. The first scene of Perry Smith is with a guitar and a set of road maps. The guitar appears to function as a feminine image and symbol. Part of what attracts Hickock to Smith is that Hickock feels "totally masculine" by this. In one scene, the criminals' automobile is mentioned. One of Perry's possessions is the guitar, and the "instrument that characterizes his companion Dick... a twelve gauge pump-action shotgun." Another instance of Smith's feminism is Hickock's constant addressing of him as "sugar," "honey," and "baby," for example, Perry says "O.K., sugar—whatever you say" (Capote 46) to Dick when discussing the murder. Outside the novel, Truman Capote himself actually falls in love with Perry Smith; only he likes him because he sees a reflection of himself somewhat in Smith.

“Cut from the same cloth”, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, “A chip off the old block”; most of us have heard these types of idioms at one point or another, ways of likening us to our parents. Sometimes they are right, while other times it couldn’t be farther from the truth; leaving us to wonder, “what is it that makes us who we are?” Are we simply the product of our environments, a collective sum of our interactions and experiences? Or, do our genetics pre-determine who we are, complex variations in our DNA that dictate our individual personalities? Some scientists argue on behalf of the nurture theory, that our personalities are continually changing and growing, influenced by the world and people around us. Others believe that we are pre-wired by genetics alone, that while external factors may magnify or diminish some aspects of that wiring, everything we are is already programmed into us from the moment of conception. So, who is right?

For many years psychologist, sociologists, novelist, students, people in general have debated over which side, nature or nurture makes us who we are. Each side of the debate has compelling arguments and facts to support their claims, however it is foolish to say one has a greater impact than the other. I believe that humans are the product of society and biology, and that they come hand in hand. That both nature and nurture make us human because there are too many facts from each side of the argument to say that one is more influential than the other. Our biology is what differentiates males and females, and our sense of self develops from the interaction with other humans and society.

In society, not one person is alike. By saying this, many people believe that they strongly take after their parents. Meaning they think Nature is a big part in their life and why they are who they are. The genes in each cell in us humans determine the different traits that we have, more dominantly on the physical connections like eye color, hair color, ear size, height, and other traits. However, it is still not known whether the more abstract attributes like personality, intelligence, sexual orientation, likes and dislikes are gene-coded in our DNA. The nurture theory has experiments showing a child’s behavior with the environment as to adult behavior. In the Nature Vs Nurture debate, everyone has their own thoughts and ideas on each

The nature-nurture debate has been around for decades. It is one of the oldest and most popular topics in the history of psychology asking what makes people who they become and how they behave and develop the way they do. What makes the debate more interesting is that now scientists are asking if personality traits and even sexual orientation can be determined by what is in already there from conception. Bodies are built up of chromosomes which contain genetic information. Many of these are inherited from parents and relatives. The nature side of the debate states the way people are is predominantly from inherited genetics and other biological factors not so much the environmental factors. The genes humans have in their bodies play a huge role to many aspects of who they are and who they become. For example, hair colour, eye colour and height are all predetermined by genes. Unchangeable. This is natures way. The argument stands to decide whether most attributes do stem from nature, genes, or if they can be affected by the environment and the way people are nurtured as they have grown. The nurture side of the argument believes although humans do have the genes and traits with which they are born, most personality traits are being made up of environmental factors. For example, being loved and cared for as children, if parents or carers were positive role models and if those people were taught in ways which provided them with discipline and respect for others. Where nature