In In Cold Blood, Truman Capote writes of Dick’s uncontrollable envy that leads to destruction as a way of making Dick’s anger unjustifiable whereas Perry’s anger comes from a long history of misfortune. When Dick’s parents are talking with Mr. Nye, Dick’s father explains to him the normality of Dick’s childhood. Dick’s father describes his son’s youth as being, “ ‘An outstanding athlete—always on the first team at school….Dick was always the star player. A pretty good student, too, with A marks in several subjects….After he graduated from high school—June, 1949—he wanted to go on to college. Study to be an engineer. But we couldn’t do it. Plain didn’t have the money” (166). As his father recalls, Dick’s only major setback in life is that he could not further his education into a college level, as the price is too high. Even though one would think the near-perfect childhood would give a young boy strong character, Dick proves that this is not the case. Capote describes the major character flaw of Dick as he writes, “Envy was constantly with him; the Enemy was anyone who was someone he wanted to be or who had anything he wanted to have” (200). Capote personifies the concept of envy by giving it a name, “the Enemy” (200). In one particular situation, “the Enemy” is an old childhood neighbor. Capote describes the scene as, “As a boy he’d so envied the son of a neighbor who had gone to the Gulf Coast on holiday and returned with a box full of shells—so hated him—that he’d stolen the shells and one by one crushed them with a hammer” (200). The only reason Dick gets so frustrated with his neighbor is that he is jealous of his vacationing. This is not a legitimate reason to destroy his neighbor’s belongings considering the anger felt about his neighbor is simply jealousy. There is not a long line of misfortune leading to the fury like there is with Perry. Whether beat by nuns in an orphanage or traveling the country with his father in hopes of making a living, Perry’s childhood is full of disappointment and loneliness. Perry spends his youth witnessing the happy lives of strangers surrounding him while he is stuck in a homeless or destructive environment. Willie-Jay, dear friend and former prison mate describes Perry’s flaw as, “ ‘Explosive emotional reaction out of all proportion to the occasion…unreasonable anger at the sight of others who are happy or content’ ” (43). Though destruction of any kind is frowned upon, Perry’s violent anger originates from a past of neglect; therefore it is possible to understand the reasons behind his rage. Due to the detailed descriptions Capote gives of Perry’s pitiful childhood and Dick’s ordinary boyhood and hospitable family, Dick’s anger seems to have no justification to it since there is no depressing past leading to his destructive anger. The longer wretched accounts of Perry’s childhood compared to Dick’s give Perry’s violent anger a rationale the reader cannot find for Dick’s savage behavior.