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Is The Theme Of In Cold Blood By Truman Capote Nature Or Nurture

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In Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood” the reader is presented with a central theme throughout the course of the book. The theme is nature vs. nurture, in comparison to Dick and Perry. Dick and Perry are the two men who commit murder on the Clutter family. Both were raised in similar environments, but they each have different genetic traits that contribute to their persona. Dick is characterized as more of a “natural born killer”, while Perry on the other hand is more of a “raised” killer. When it comes to creating a murderer, it contributes more to the nurture side of the long winded psychology debate. Throughout the course of the story, the reader gets to dive into Dick and Perry’s mindset, see what they are thinking and how they feel about certain subjects. When it comes to making a murderer, it all comes down to how that person was raised. This can play a huge part in someone’s life, weather they have good parents who are involved with their life, or if they’re like Perry, whose parents weren’t involved at all. “He was different. He put his arms around me… wanted to …show more content…

Dick, when he was growing up had a good family. They weren’t the best, but they cared for him and his well-being. Despite dick being a killer, he is very normal and “laid back”. For him to be able to turn it on and off is what makes him a natural born killer. “Dick was always the star player. A pretty good student, too, with ‘A’ marks in several subjects… He wanted to go to college. (166)” Dick wanted to have goals in life and be successful, but his killer instincts got in the way and fogged up his life, turning him into something he probably never wanted to be. He was probably surprised when he realized that he lied the rush he got from killing and how much he yearned for it when he wasn’t doing it, just like with other

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In Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood,” Dick and Perry have murdered the Clutter family and are on their way to Mexico. In this passage, Dick makes an astounding statement. In the passage, Dick claims that he’s “a normal” but that is far from the truth. He is a conniving, manipulative son of a bitch who thinks he’s normal in comparison to Perry.

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758 Words | 4 Pages

Nature versus nurture is one of the most controversial debates in contemporary psychology. The debate concerning whether or not humans are born with the preset characteristics that will shape lives for years to come or whether actions are a result of the events and the environment that pave the way for our behavioral characteristics. Capote’s “In Cold Blood” gives the audience a detailed look into the upbringing of the character Perry Smith, creating a sympathetic outlook towards his past and attempting to bring a sense of understanding as to how a seemingly harmless young man could brutally murder four innocent people. In the case of Perry Smith, nurture was the cause of his actions in regards to the Clutter family murders.

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838 Words | 4 Pages

Truman Capote’s novel, In Cold Blood epitomizes the shifting sentiments related to the murder of the Clutter family which range from terror, to sorrow, to pride, and all mixed emotions in between. Yet through Capote’s particular descriptions about each character, the connection between their feelings and their actions become further clarified. In effect, the readers experience feelings of sympathy for the victims, their friends and family, the investigators, and even the brutal murders of the innocent family. In order to craft this association, Capote employs a pathos appeal to amplify the audience’s ability to sympathize with each and every character.

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523 Words | 3 Pages

In Cold Blood Essay #2 Although Perry commited a terrible crime, Capote depicts perry as a innocent and push-over person; therefore, true guilt falls upon the manipulator. Capote writes Dick and Perry as two very seperate people that have underlying differences. Perry tells an anecdote about his initial feelings towarrds Dick explaining why he said the things he said, “‘Deep down,” Perry continued, “way, way rock-bottom, I never thought I could do it. A thing like that.”

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175 Words | 1 Pages

“Nature is the consists of the genetic material that a person inherits from their parents,” and “Nature refers to your experiences.” In the book In Cold Blood in stated that Dick wanted to go to college to be an engineer, but his parents couldn’t afford it. So in that case he tried to live above his means and acquired a great deal of debt, he changed jobs often to try to make more money to pay for the things he wanted. After a while Dick started making very bad decisions that reflected bad on his appearance, he started gambling, cheating on his wife and even writing bad checks after a car accident that had happened on the year 1950. There was no clear visual on whether nature or nurture cased Dick to become a violent criminal.

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679 Words | 3 Pages

That is what makes Perry Smith a psychopath. The life Perry was forced to live in caused him to commit the murders. It was fate that made Perry Smith a murderer. Perry killed because of the way he was raised to be, or not raised to be. It was inevitable that in the end, he would become a killer.

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1021 Words | 5 Pages

Normality in Capote’s Text ‘In Cold Blood’ Truman Capote, in his non-fiction journalistic narrative, gives readers the opportunity to reconsider the dichotomy of ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’. Capote also suggests true normality differs from society’s concept of normality. The concept of normality is challenged throughout the entirety of ‘In Cold Blood’, first in the Clutter family, then in Dick and Perry and in sexuality throughout the text. The Clutters, a seemingly ‘normal’ family who have obtained a wealthy and successful life, are polite and hardworking, community-driven and respected.

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1090 Words | 5 Pages

Some people might say people inherit traits from their parents, and some say they learn them based on an upbringing, but In Truman Capote’s account of the brutal murders of the clutter family in In Cold Blood, he uses the argument of Nature vs. Nurture to further explain the life behind murderer, Perry Smith. After hearing the accounts of the brutal murders, Capote goes on to explain the story behind both Perry and Dick’s lives, But Perry’s childhood stands out more. After being abandoned, beaten, and left to survive alone, Perry’s cards were stacked against him. By showing the complexity of criminals, Capote uses Perry to show the example of a non-nurturing childhood creating a person capable of murder.

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477 Words | 2 Pages

Copote uses this quote to descried Perry. "Nonetheless, he found it possible to look at the man beside him without anger-with, rather a measure of sympathy-for Perry Smith's life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, an ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and then another." (246) Perry’s mental condition is a result of a traumatic childhood. It was understandable to even a KBI agent that Perry’s background is what drove him to commit murder.

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573 Words | 3 Pages

Through similar tactics Capote allows the reader to feel sorry for Dewey, even though he is the man who catches the killing pair. Detective Dewey is first introduced in part two of In Cold Blood, where the readers learn that this would not be an easy case and the Dewey would be the head detective, even though he had personal ties with the Clutter family. The reader would automatically feel sorry for Detective Dewey because he was going to do heavy investigating on a murder of a family he knew and there was very little time to mourn the deaths. Detective Dewey spent countless hours trying to chase down every lead that popped up, taking family time away, which wears on all family members. The reader feels sympathy for Dewey as he loses time with his family around the holiday time because he has become so involved in the case.

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1515 Words | 7 Pages

“Dick has loving parents, no poorer than anyone else in the neighborhood. By his parents' and his own account (Dick Hickock in In Cold Blood), he was a good kid, did well in school, lettered in nine

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539 Words | 3 Pages

How crazy would it be to interview criminals who murdered 4 people in cold blood? Well that’s exactly what Truman Capote did in this chilling book. In the novel In Cold Blood, Truman Capote used different rhetorical strategies to create sympathy and influence the idea that there are always two sides to every story. Some of the mainly used rhetorical strategies throughout the novel were imagery, diction, tone, and pathos. Furthermore, Capote also illustrated sympathetical emotion towards both types of characters, the protagonists and antagonists.

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596 Words | 3 Pages

In In Cold Blood, the issue over the death penalty is prominent. Did Perry and Dick deserve to die? Should the severity of one’s crime determine one’s fate? Although Truman Capote writes the novel in a straightforward, “from a distance” way, he conveys, through his characters, theme, and plot development, that the death penalty is an issue that should be looked at from all sides and that the legal system itself is the real issue at hand, and that the death penalty is used as a means to suppress the distress and indignation of the citizens surrounding the case, instead of suppressing the victim himself.

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1177 Words | 5 Pages

He is portrayed as a mastermind in the cold-blooded killing of the Clutters family, a man with little respect for the lives of others, which can be seen through Dick’s expression before the murder of the Clutters when he converses Perry, “We’re gonna go in there and splatter those walls with hair” (Capote 234). This sudden tone shift enables Capote to depict Dick as a cruel and immoral character. Dick’s lack of empathy and concern for other people beside himself allow him to commit crimes without remorse, which is in contrast to Perry’s moral contemplation after each bad actions they committed. Moreover, Dick is represented as the true criminal with evident motives in murdering the Clutters, while Perry is seen as a vulnerable victim who depends on Dick for validation and acceptance, something in which Dick happily provides in order to manipulate Perry, as Capote writes, “Dick became convinced that Perry was that rarity, ‘a natural born killer,’—absolutely sane but conscienceless, and capable of dealing with or without motive, the coldest-blooded deathblows. It was Dick's theory that such a gift could, under his supervision, be profitably exploited” (Capote 205).

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1346 Words | 6 Pages

One in four people in the world will be affected by mental or neurological disorder at some point in their lives. 450 million people are currently suffering from a mental disorder according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The nature vs. nurture debate within psychology is worried with the extent of particular behavior, whether or not it is caused by the way you were raised, or if it was inherited through disease. In Cold Blood, they take us on a journey of how Dick and Perry made November 15th, 1959 the Clutters last day on earth. Dick and Perry are both troubled men.

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