Felicity Miller Mrs. Terpstra College English-1st Hour 1 May, 2023 Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood: Unveiling the Murderers A single bloody footprint tracks its way through the Clutters’ home, corpses tied up, silenced until their last breaths. In Holcomb, Kansas, two murderers killed four people without warning, under the guise of thievery, but hardly any money was stolen. An author, Truman Capote, was inspired after engrossing himself in the peculiar violence, and the event resulted in the creation of a well-known piece of literature that was published in 1965: In Cold Blood. The novel sets itself apart in that it explores not only the murder and the clues itself, but twists true crime so that the reader will sympathize with the murderers, …show more content…
An overarching theme of Capote’s In Cold Blood is that everyone contains complexities without being fully right or wrong, which is unveiled through the descriptions of the murderers Perry and Dick and their transitioning psychological states as they carry out the crime. In his descriptions, Capote humanizes the murderers. Furthermore, Capote does not dehumanize Perry and Dick or fully justify the Clutter murders that made the duo killers. He portrays them as struggling, imperfect humans, who have both good and bad sides. For example, both murderers have redeemable qualities, especially in intelligence and learning: “Richard [‘Dick’] Hickock is above average in intelligence, grasps new ideas easily, and has a wide fund of information” (Capote, 294), and Perry “...is oriented, hyperalert to things going on about him, and shows no sign of confusion. He is above average in intelligence, and has a good range of information considering his …show more content…
and Mrs. Clutter, and Nancy and Kenyon Clutter. The psychologist’s analysis of Dick was that he “show[s] signs of emotional abnormality. That he knew what he was doing and still went ahead with it is possibly the most clear-cut demonstration of this fact” (Capote, 294). According to multiple sources, he was diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder shortly before his hanging. Mary Anne Gunter’s “A Profile of the Antisocial Personality Disorder” describes Hickock’s criminal