Who's stronger?

Throughout In Cold Blood Dick was initially the one pushing the idea of killing the Clutters, acting like the stronger person, but underneath it all Dick is in actuality the weaker one of Dick and Perry by the end of the book. Perry had always been the more sensitive of the two throughout the story and took the role of the woman. When he is separated from Dick in jail he misses him. Perry looked to Dick when he didn’t know what to do but Perry had begun to see through Dick. In Perry’s diary he writes, “Dick was not the ‘hardrock' he'd once thought him: ‘pragmatic,’ ‘virile,’ ‘a real brass boy; he'd proven himself to be a ‘pretty weak and shallow’ a coward”(259). This really showed through on the night of the murder when Dick wouldn’t kill the Clutters. Before the murder Perry would never have called Dick a coward or shallow. Now Dick was more into raping girls, like Nancy, then killing the family. Even the psychiatrist noted, “His self-esteem is very low and he secretly feels inferior to others and sexually inadequate.” (295). Throughout the whole book we get the persona that Dick is a murderer with no soul when really he’s just a very shallow person looking for love from others. Dick use to be a role model for Perry, someone he could look to for answers but now Perry seemed to be stronger. I’m not sure I would call him stronger but more braver of the two. Perry has a lot of personal issues, but so does Dick. Dick finds it necessary to rape girls to make him happy and Perry only killed the Clutter family to prove to Dick he was a strong person. Dick and Perry both show signs of weakness but Perry looked to Dick as a criminal, someone who didn’t give a care in the world what he did, but now he saw Dick as a weak person.