Trust

The beginning of the book describes the personalities of all the different characters including the Clutter family and Perry. Capote uses the beginning to show hints of similarities b/w Perry and the clutters to show that a murderer can be like the all around American family. While describing the Clutter family, he also shows different signs of insecurities so that the reader can relate to them, he did so in order to show the fall of trust in which people would now think of their neighbors and even themselves of being murdered or murderers. Capote describes the character of Perry when stating, “Like Mr. Clutter, the young man breakfasting in a café called the Little Jewel never drank coffee.”(14). This quote is an example of capote comparing Perry, the murderer, to Mr. Clutter, while also comparing Perry to any regular citizen as the clutters can be related to the regular people of America. Average Americans can be related to the clutters as the Clutters are not perfect but Capote reveals the hidden insecurity issues of the family. This includes Nancy’s insecurity problems kept to herself, in which was discovered by Capote when he sated, “But as in every manifestation, she continued to tinker with her handwriting…as though she were asking, ‘Is his Nancy? Or that? Which is me?”(57). This immaturity of Nancy is placed by capote in order to relate the family to the readers in order for the readers to feel the change in trust throughout the community.