Sympathy for All
Bram Stoker says, “Though sympathy alone can't alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable.” Sympathy is feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else's misfortune. In Truman Capote's novel, he shows sympathy towards Nancy Clutter and Perry Smith. Truman Capote reveals many fantastic traits of Nancy to create sympathy for her when she is killed. She is a young woman of many great characteristics that loses her life in a horrific murder mystery. Capote describes, “a straight-A student, the president of her class, a leader in the 4-H program and the Young Methodists League, a skilled rider, an excellent musician (piano, clarinet), an annual winner at the county fair (pastry, preserves, needlework, flower arrangement)... ‘She's got
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Perry grows up under extremely difficult situation. Perry explains, "I was always thinking about Dad… It was not long afterward my mother put me to stay in a Catholic orphanage. The one where the Black Widows were always at me. Hitting me. Because of wetting the bed… There was this one nurse, she used to call me 'nigger'... What she used to do, she'd fill a tub with ice-cold water, put me in it, and hold me under till I was blue. Nearly drowned.” (Capote 132) Short sentences emphasize the terrible conditions of Perry’s life. He is abandoned, abused, never gets respect, and he has a thirst for knowledge but does not get much education. Perry lives a tragic life. Most of his childhood challenges result in long term effects on his life. Nancy Clutter and Perry Smith are only a couple of the characters that were sympathized throughout this novel. Truman Capote manages to create sympathy for almost every single character no matter their position in the novel. For example, despite the totally opposite roles these characters play in the book, they both have pity and sorrow filled