In Cold Blood Theme Essay

In Cold Blood Essay

The American dream is a major theme in the novel In Cold Blood written by Truman Capote. Both Perry Smith and Dick Hickock pursue their views of the American dream, while the Clutters’ deaths show how quickly that dream could be destroyed and shattered to pieces. Truman Capote shows his idea of the American dream throughout the novel. The main theme of the novel is death, and Capote uses this theme to explain more of his subtle points about his thoughts on the American dream. Most of the points he makes direct back to the Clutter family because they live, and eventually die, believing in the American dream.

In the opening of the story, the Clutter’s are going on with their day as if it was any other. Herb Clutter had finally

Capote believed in this simple family oriented dream, in which everyone is living the “perfect life.” The American dream emphasizes the idea that you are happy with what you have before you can truly achieve more happiness. In Cold Blood displays this idea with the example of the Ashidas. Mrs. Ashida states, “The farm here, the people we’re working for-Hideo thinks we could do better,” (41), even though he appears to be living the dream Capote imagines. He is very dissatisfied of where he is in Holcomb, so he strives to be better, to be wealthier, and by doing that, he believes he would be improving his happiness in life. Capote has an important point about the American dream, and it’s that one can’t chase after something that is worth more than what they have, because then they can lose the everything that they had ever cared about. Hickock and Smith are both trying to accomplish a certain lifestyle, which is that if they kill the Clutters, they will be rich, leading them to the course of happiness in their lives. However, when they are in Mexico, Perry realizes that he wants more from the world and his life, even though he’s basically living the life he had always dreamed of. Dick and Perry spend their money in all the wrong ways, and by doing that, they were sent back to the United States, leading to their execution and arrest.

The American dream leads to nothing more nor less than death in his eyes, no matter how you attempt to achieve it. To Capote, the American dream was this idea that the people had set in their minds, in which they believed happiness was the cure to a great life. In a way it was true, but in others, not so much. The American dream wouldn’t be possible without the idea of this perfect life full of happiness, but what the people didn’t understand was that the only way they were going to be happy, was if they worked hard enough to be happy. In the end, you had to have been satisfied with how much work you had done. The fact that you were satisfied was basically you telling yourself that you’re ready to take on the world, whether it was all in or one step at a time. The story illustrates our own human mortality, and shows how unnecessary the pursuit of the American dream really is. It doesn’t matter how happy or how satisfied you were in the end, because the Clutter’s didn’t even get to live and see what their world could’ve looked like. The Clutter family basically accomplished and created all of these things and yet didn’t even get the pleasure to live with them. They did all of this hard work and lived this beautiful life, and yet didn’t even get to see how much they had accomplished. Their death came before they could finally say they were satisfied. As much as they had accomplished, in the end,