Schizophrenia In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

Perry “It starts at home”(Alaina Thomas). Most murderers come from broken homes, some hardly have a place to call home. Perry Smith, a character from the book In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, was one of those people. Throughout the story it is evident that pieces of his childhood reflected on his behavior later on. It is possible if not factual that if Perry had been raised differently, the Clutter family would not have been murdered. However, Perry Smith had a traumatic childhood which led to mental scars, confirming his diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Despite his illness he still earned the undeserved death penalty for the murder of the Clutter family. Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness that affects how a person thinks,

According to the Mayo Clinic, “Signs and symptoms may vary, but usually involve delusions, hallucinations or disorganized speech, and reflect an impaired ability to function” (Mayo Clinic). Hints of these symptoms are seen in Perry's behavior consistently. When Perry's dad snatched a biscuit out of his hand, Perry says, “My hands got hold of his throat. My hands, but I couldn't control them. They wanted to choke him to death” (136). That intrusive thought that Perry had of choking his own father to death, not even being able to control himself, is a major sign of mental illness. Another moment where it seems like Perry was not in control of himself was right before he killed Herb Clutter. Perry states, “I told him [Herb] it wasn't long till morning, and how in the morning somebody would find them, and that all of it, me and Dick and all, would seem like something they dreamed. I wasn't kidding him. I didn't want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat” (244). Perry did not have a reason for killing the man, he just simply did it. It was almost like an intrusive thought or a trigger. Either way Perry was not mentally healthy and that is clear. However, killing Perry was not the answer. A punishment is useless if the person being punished has no idea what they did wrong. Instead, he