The Theme Of Revenge In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

The Revenge of the Outsiders Revenge: to take vengeance for; inflict punishment for. The American society is quick to outcast those who are different and do not fulfill the American Dream expectations. Truman Capote’s book, In Cold Blood, tells the real life story of the Clutter family who were known as the perfect family. The Clutter’s were murdered by two men that were outsiders their whole life because they were different and did not meet the ideal image presented. Capote’s novel was to demonstrate how having this expectation affects oneself when they feel unaccepted by society. The ideal image is trigger cause of revenge in the novel. The ideal image causes people to feel outcasted, which evidently leads to revenge. The ideal image in this time period, 1959’s, was essentially the American Dream. The American Dream is the expectation that American’s will have opportunities to become successful, rich, live peacefully, and provide for a

Being deemed as an outsider creates people to mentally hate themselves and feel that there is something wrong with them. Perry has went his entire life being judged, unaccepted and hurt multiple times. He had resentment of society and jealousy of those, like the Clutters, being everything that he could not be. Perry did not have anything against the Clutter’s, “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.” (275). Showing how Perry did not have anything against the Clutters, he just felt anger and resentment from his past life he lashed out on the first people there. Many people feel pressure to fit in, however when they felt hopeless to ever be accepted as normal, they turn to crime as revenge. This pressure caused hostility towards the American society and life