What Is Capote's Evaluation Of Hickock And Dr. Jones

Although Capote appears to validate Perry’s innocence, his true goal lies in proving the immorality of the death penalty, therefore, solidifying that vengeful acts serve no purpose, as they create more wrong than they do right. Capote utilizes Dr. Jones’ reliability as an advantage to further justify the reality of the psychiatrist’s findings. These findings are trustworthy, as Capote mentions the collaboration between the doctor and an expert in the field on behalf of the two convict’s analyses: “It is significant that a widely respected veteran in the field of forensic psychiatry, Dr. Joseph Satten of the Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas, consulted with Dr. Jones and endorsed his evaluations of Hickock and Smith” (298). Inserting a respected

When asked to answer the question that would either save or end a life, a simple, yet extremely powerful query, Dr. Jones merely stated, “No” (296). Since the law only allows a one-word answer, four lines later, Capote feels obligated to further explain Dr. Jones’ reasoning behind those two letters: “Perry Smith shows definite signs of severe mental illness. His childhood [...] was marked by brutality and lack of concern on the part of both parents. He seems to have grown up without direction, without love, and without ever having absorbed any fixed sense of moral values …” (297). Placing the brevity of the one word answer just before the long-winded clarification exemplifies everything required for a complete answer to the question. A psychological analysis is a year: it is made up of many different aspects of a person’s life, which can be boiled down into months of decision making, weeks of thoughts, days of feelings, hours of incentives, then pulled apart to reveal how a person becomes the way that they are. A psychiatrist is a person who has dedicated their life to studying the brain and its inner workings. They understand how difficult it is to summarize their findings. Yet the brief reply he was required to give was a second. It was short, it was abrupt, and it was over in the blink of an eye. It didn’t allow the opportunity to completely explore the complicated definition of insanity, as it only answers to the traditional definition. However, Perry is not a second. He is much more than that. He is made up of years upon years of life experience, a life that needs more than one word to fully summarize. A life that was wrongly taken due to an unjust law and a town that wanted to see him pay. A town that wanted revenge. A town that was blinded by anger and