Capote uses Perry’s dream to map out exactly what is going to happen in Perry’s future. Perry describes to Dick a scene he dreamt of him finding a lone standing tree with diamonds hanging from it like fruit. There is a snake in the tree protecting the diamonds, yet Perry, despite his knowledge of the snake being there attempts to grab the diamond and is then forced to fight with the snake. As he is engaged in the fight a giant bird appears, sweeps him up and takes him away to paradise (92). Perry tells his feelings upon seeing this tree, “Jesus, it smells bad, that tree; it kind of makes me sick, the way it stinks. Only, it’s beautiful to look at” (92). Perry finds the tree beautiful yet there is something about it, some indescribable “smell” that he cannot stand. These contradictory feelings are the same he had toward the Clutters. Right before Perry slit Mr. Clutter’s throat he thought he was a nice, respectable man but there was something about Mr. Clutter, a feeling of contempt Mr. Clutter had that Perry could not deal with. The diamond tree therefore represents the Clutters; just as Perry takes the diamond, his main motive was also to steal from the Clutters. The snake comes after Perry after he takes the diamond just as the people of Holcumb come after him after he murders and steals from the Clutters. And in Perry’s mind the person who saves, or attempts to save him from the convicting citizens of Holcumb, Capote. Although Capote originally gets him a better lawyer and tells him that he is writing a novel that will portray him as more than a monster, in the end Perry is still killed. Perry thinks he is being saved by this, “warrior-angel” (93) but in reality Capote is only leading him to his death. Perry describes the descent to death in his dream as the bird, “Gently lifted him, enfolded him, winged him away to ‘paradise’” (93). Perry thinks he is being whisked off to a perfect place on earth but in reality this “Paradise” is heaven. Perry’s dream foreshadows everything that will happen to him in the future but he is not connected enough to his sensitive side to realize what it means.