Richard Hickocks Childhoods In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

In the novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote explores aspects of Perry Smiths and Richard Hickocks childhoods that may have affected their psychology and lead to the 1959 Clutter family murder. The fact that Truman Capote included these memories and old letters from their past was to show that he thought it played a part in the greater problem although he does not directly say that. He gives the reader the choice to decide for themselves, whether they think the awful childhoods of the main characters were the reasons they thought it was acceptable to murder a family in their own home in cold blood, or weather it was completely and fully their choice to commit this crime. From the way the writer describes Smiths past, it gives the reader the

“Hold me under until I was blue.” Makes the reader feel like they are experiencing this rough treatment and torturous deprivation of oxygen first hand. The word blue has connotations of sadness or depression, which is how Truman Capote often portrays Perry Smith. The nuns’ effect on him plays a huge role in the way the murder is played out. On the way to the Clutters home, they were planning on picking up some tights from the nuns in a church. This is Irony because Nuns are portrayed as pure, godly women and the stockings would have been used for murder, which is everything nuns and their beliefs are against. There is also a lot of contradiction in the sense that nuns are supposed to be holy and stockings are a connotation for prostitution and sin. “On their way, and never coming back—without regret, as far as [Perry] was concerned, because he was leaving nothing behind, and no one who might deeply wonder into what thin air he 'd spiraled.” This quote shows how deeply isolated Perry Smith was and how lonely he was in the world. The diction “thin air” shows that he was as light as a feather, he could go anywhere and nobody would notice, he was as unnoticeable and forgotten as the air. Capote tells the readers that Perry smith had actually murdered the Clutters but some how in the end, the reader still feels bad for him. This is because of the way Truman Capote shows pity for Smith and inflicts his opinion into the book by sharing the saddest moments of Smiths childhood with the reader, as though saying that he shouldn’t be blamed for the murder because his childhood shaped him to be this