In In Cold Blood, Truman Capote continues to describe the tragic flaw of Perry Smith as a way of making the pitiful murderer seem magnificent, similar to the grandiose of a Greek hero. After killing the Clutter family, Perry reminisces on his time in jail with his closest friend and savior, Willie-Jay. The “brilliant” Willie-Jay points out the tragic flaw of Perry as he tells him:

‘You are a man of extreme passion, a hungry man not quite sure where his appetite lies, a deeply frustrated man striving to protect his individuality against a backdrop of right conformity. You exist in a half-word suspended between two superstructures, one self-expression and the other self-destruction. You are strong, but there is a flaw in your strength, and unless you learn to control it the flaw will prove stronger than your strength and defeat you. The flaw? Explosive emotional reaction out of all proportion to the occasion. Why? Why this unreasonable anger at the sight of others who are happy or content, this growing contempt for people and the desire to hurt them?’ (43).

Willie-Jay starts off by discussing the incredibleness of Perry such as his great intellectual mind and caring personality. Similar to Perry, numerous Greek heroes and gods are described as unbelievable, but they always have one small thing wrong about them, which eventually leads to their great downfall. The Greek hero Achilles and his weak heel is an example of a “larger than life” figure with one problem that leads to death. As Willie-Jay states, Perry has “explosive emotional reaction of all proportion to the occasion…at the sight of others who are happy or content” (43). Capote makes Perry’s impulse for violence as his tragic flaw as it leads to the killings of the Clutter family, which ultimately ruins his life, and thus explains to the reader the reasons behind the troubled man. This flaw appears again much later while Dick and Perry are hitchhiking to Nebraska. They end up riding with a nice truck driver named Mr. Bell who they intend to eventually kill. Before carrying out their murderous plan, Dick bonds with Mr. Bell as Capote writes, “Their [Dick and Mr. Bell’s] laughter irritated Perry; he especially disliked Mr. Bell’s outbursts—hearty barks that sounded very much like the laughter of Tex John Smith, Perry’s father. The memory of his father’s laughter increased his tension; his head hurt, his knees ached” (174). As Willie-Jay predicted it would, something as simple as another’s man’s laugh and sound of joy irritates Perry to an extent that he aches from the thought of someone else’s happiness. Perry’s next thought is that it is time to kill Mr. Bell. Willie-Jay is absolutely right as he suggests that Perry seeks violence after witnessing happiness. Capote’s way of making uncontrollable anger Perry’s flaw makes the reader feel pity for Perry as he is the murderer with a troubled past and holds no control of his explosive emotions. Capote builds Perry the way he wants the reader to see, which is an innocent man, great in all aspects of life, similar to a Greek god, but because of his need for violence after seeing other’s contentment, is left with a doomed future.