Forget Fun with Dick and Jane–Murder with Dick and Perry! Throughout Truman Capote’s nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are shown in two distinct lights. While Perry appears to have compassion and a possible mental illness, Dick is portrayed as a ruthless, apathetic monster. Through the use of vivid descriptions and changing points of view, Capote makes the audience see Perry as a helpless accessory to murder, while Dick is the mastermind.
By establishing Perry as a “good” antagonist, Capote shows that although he did commit the murders, Perry’s mental instability and Dick’s persuasion was the cause—not Perry’s own intention. The two passages represent just how far Capote goes to make the audience feel sympathy for Perry, while simultaneously repelling them from Dick. The descriptions of Dick are used to dissuade the audience from pitying him. The two passages both reveal his troubled personality, though the first passage primarily focuses on Dick’s thoughts and reactions to the events that are occurring around him.
He is personified entirely in negative instances, which causes Capote’s audience to feel antipathy. While Perry wonders whether they are damaged people for murdering the Clutters, Dick becomes “annoyed” and wishes for Perry to “shut up”, declaring himself “a normal”, while believing Perry is damaged (108). To distract himself from the truth, Dick thinks about the things that make Perry abnormal: the bedwetting, the anger issues, and his over-emotional nature. This makes Dick feel better intrinsically, because instead even mentioning his own faults, he entirely focuses on Perry.
However, this is only Capote’s interpretation of events; by retelling the story this way, Dick appears to be purposefully omitting his own inadequacies. Similarly, there are details provided in the second passage, such as when Dick proudly remarks, “Boy! We sure splattered him! ” after running over a dog (113). Again, Capote shows Dick as a man who enjoys killing things, like helpless animals. Naturally, the audience feels disgust, as it is difficult to imagine someone running over a dog for the fun of it.
By including these details, Capote portrays Dicks as an evil, yet cognitively-aware criminal who maliciously plotted to murder a family. In contrast to Dick, Perry is portrayed as an emotional man. He is open to the idea that there is something wrong with him, and cannot forget his crimes. Even Dick remarks on the possibility that something was not right about “Little Perry”, which shows the audience that anyone who knew Perry could see there was probably a mental disorder (108).
Then in the second passage, Capote describes Perry’s disastrous home life, and the fact that his mother had “strangled to death on her own vomit”, his sister “jumped out of a window”, and his older brother had “driven his wife to suicide and killed himself the next” (110-111). By including the horrifically colorful ways that Perry’s family perished, Capote incites a feeling of pity from the audience. Like the image of a Dick mercilessly running over a dog, the image of Perry’s family killing themselves appeals emotionally to the audience, and makes them feel sympathetic towards Capote.
It is also revealed that Perry lied about being in jail for murdering King and he only told Dick that he had because “he’d wanted Dick’s friendship” (111). Due to the fabrication of events, Dick thought of Perry as a dangerous criminal and enlisted him in the death of the Clutters. While Perry simply tries to make himself liked, Dick takes advantage of this and coerces him into murder. Capote shares this detail to show that while Perry had innocent intentions with Dick, Dick only used Perry for his seemingly heartless murderous tendencies.
By juxtaposing the two criminals in both passages, Capote shows that there are two types of criminals: the aware and the unaware. Though the crime does belong to the both, Capote wants to prove that Perry is more innocent because of his disabilities and mental illness, compared to Dick, who was completely aware of his actions the whole time. Through the descriptions of the men in the two passages, it is clear that Capote’s purpose is to make the audience more accepting of Perry, while steering them away from Dick. The voice of the first passage appears to be Dick’s, as it is a recollection of thoughts and actions of Dick.
The first sentence of the passage is “The car was parked on a promontory where Perry and Dick had stopped to picnic” (107). This sentence is straightforward and factual, much like Dick. The tone is unemotional and distant, with apathetic diction such as “he liked it fine”, “[t]hey had crossed the border at Laredo” and “[t]hey were now two hundred miles north of their next destination” (108). Dick is completely focused on moving on, which shows that he feels no connection to the murders. In fact, he becomes aggravated with Perry’s consistent revisiting of the night they killed the Clutters.
The audience “hears” Dick’s thoughts and sees a vexed man who questions why Perry cares so much about the crime. Capote intentionally does this to show that without Perry, Dick would completely forget about the Clutters. Capote shows the merciless nature of Dick through his own eyes, which then makes the audience feel like the novel is a first-hand recollection of Dick, opposed to an interpretation by Capote. This is a success for Capote, because his intention is to present Dick in a negative way, to be an antithesis to Perry.
The second passage immediately shows a tonal shift by beginning with the phrases, “Mountains. Hawks wheeling in a white sky”; though the exact same words are used in the previous passage, the tone is softer, almost mystical (110). This is because the audience is now experiencing the same moment from Perry’s point of view, which is more childlike and dreamy than Dick’s candid disposition. He also differs because of his recollection of events from the night of the murders, using specific diction such as “the glass eyes of a big toy bear” and “hysterical nhalations” (110). By using such exact wording, the audience can see the images and know that they are ingrained in Perry’s memory. There is no way to erase the night from his brain, and he will forever live haunted by what he’s done, unlike Dick. Capote uses this technique to show that Perry feels emotion, and that he has the mental capacity to know that what he did was wrong.
This is comparative to the syntax of the description of Perry’s home life. Capote uses exclamation marks to emphasize the sentences, “Look at his family! Look at what happened there! , and he creates an exasperated, defeated tone (110). In these lines, Capote clearly shows bias by revealing his emotion towards Perry and his belief that Perry could not help his circumstances and that the audience should fe compassionate. While both Capote and Perry contribute to the point of view of the second passage, it is a stagnant positive portrayal of a quasi-innocent man that made a mistake, which the audience can pity. On the other hand, Dick is a pitiless criminal who deserves to be punished, as he shows neither emotion nor remorse for his crimes.
By contrasting the two points of view in the two passages, Capote effectively incites pathos for Perry, while Dick is received as the true villain of the novel. These passages are principally used to show that Dick and Perry were polar-opposite people who were lethal when put together. While Dick had formulated the murder with the belief that Perry was a heartless killer, Perry merely wanted a friend and after the killings, he truly believed that there was something morally wrong with the two men. By using colorful descriptions and different points of view, Capote successfully compels the audience to see Perry in a better light than Dick.
