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. 

In the second section of In Cold Blood, entitled Persons Unknown, Perry and Dick must stay together to avoid capture. Capote writes that, "It was obvious they could not now safely separate. On that point they were in accord, for Dick had said, 'If we get caught, let's get caught together. Then we can back each other up. When they start pulling the confession crap, saying you said and I said.' Moreover, if he broke with Dick, it meant the end of plans still attractive to Perry" (91). They both know that if one gets captured alone, they will likely turn the other in for a deal, and come to the conclusion that they need to stay together.

Snakes

Capote uses snakes throughout the story to help the reader infer that Dick and Perry will be caught eventually. The snake in Perry's dream symbolizes that, in due time, they will both be arrested. Perry stands before a tree of diamonds and thinks, "Thats why I'm there-to pick myself a bushel of diamonds. But I know the minute I try to, the minute I reach up, a snake is gonna fall on me," (92). Perry wants those diamonds (whatever it was that he was looking for the night he killed the clutters) but the snake stops him and it appears he never gets the diamonds (he never gets what he's looking for and eventually gets arrested). As stated in the previous sentence, the diamonds are metaphors for the murders that had so recently been committed and the snake is a metaphor for the arrest that is soon to take place. Later in the dream, Perry fights with the snake, but eventually, "he starts to swallow me. Feet first. Like going down in quick sand," (92). This line is again a metaphor regarding the arrest and after the arrest. It could imply that Perry and Dick struggle with the police, as Perry struggles with the snake. It is more likely, however that the struggle with the snake refers to the difficult process that Capote went through, finding new lawyers, applying for an appeal, etc to keep Dick and Perry alive as long as he needed to. Though, in the end, Perry is eaten by the snake, which is symbolic of the eventual demise of the killers. Capote excellently uses snakes in the story to foreshadow and make the reader keep guessing what will happen next.

Perry's True Colors

In the second part of In Cold Blood many details are uncovered about Perry's past that show him to be a messed up individual. his two sided personality is unpredictable and dangerous. Even his seemingly fearless counterpart Dick is afraid of Perry and his twisted personality. "But Perry-there was, in Dick's opinion, "something wrong" with little Perry"(108). This quotation stated by Dick depicts how even he being a criminal was in shock to see how truly disturbing Perry's emotions were. In the prior text to the quotation Dick states that he is, "a normal". Dick in this passage is revealing that he is a normal person with a conscience and control over his actions. Whereas in Perry's case he is an unpredictable tool that can either be used for violence or for art. Perry himself cannot also believe that he could commit such a grusome crime against a family that had done him absolutely no wrong. "Deep down," Perry continued, "way, way rock-bottom,I never thought I could do it. A thing likke that"(109). Perry's quotation referrs to the murders and how he did hav feelings of doubt about commiting such a felony. Race is another key component in how Perry shows his true feelings and emotions. As Perry and Dick are conversing about the crime they commited Dick asks Perry about how he had killed a colored man. Perry responds, "But a nigger," said Perry. "Thats different"(109). Perry's response to Dicks question depicts how Perry saw the lives of other people of other races as worthless and expendable. This gives the reader the notion that Perry truly deep down was a crazed murder, yet through how calmly and normally Perry responds to these questions it seems as if killing is second nature to Perry.

Truman Capote makes the Clutter like a regular American family for the reason, so the reader will relate either himself or herself or a family they know to get the point across that this horrible act could happen to anyone. If Truman Capote created the characteristics of a rare American family, then the reader will not make the comparison that Truman Capote wants the reader to make to get the point across that this horrible act can happen to anybody. Truman Capote describes the kids (Nancy and Kenyon) as two fairly good kids. He described Kenyon as a "where both Kenyon and Nancy had been honor-roll straight A students." This is a description that most people would admire. But he also says that they, once in a while smoked. The reason that he gives them this flaw is because if the children were absolutely "perfect" nobody would relate to this family because nobody is "perfect." A school teacher about the killings says, "Feeling wouldn't run half so high if this had happened to anyone except the Clutters." This quote shows that the fact that this happened to the Clutters made the murder more significant, due to the fact that they were the least likely people to be murdered. And makes the reader think that this could happen to anyone. Because of the description of the Clutter family, the reader relates the family to either their family or a family they know, which is ultimately what Truman wants the reader to do.

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.

Truman Capote sets Perry up to be the villain that we become attached to. Capote makes it so that we actually begin to sympathize with what is going on in Perry’s life leading up to the atrocious crime. After the murders, Perry recalls a recurring dream where he is rescued by a yellow parrot, which wings him away to paradise (92-93). When he retells this dream to Dick, there are subtle hints that Perry endured a troubled childhood. Dick tells Perry to forget the dream and remembers when he first met Perry in jail. Dick remembers Perry was overly fretful, sensitive, and romantic (108-109). This is all a source of his lack of a childhood. He missed out on all of the things that a child goes through with his family, and he never had those things growing up. This can lead to the reader feeling empathetic and almost a sadness towards Perry. Capote also hints that Perry’s childhood was lonely and disorganized. All of this leads toward the reader feeling empathy for the horrible, ruthless things that Perry Smith did after learning about his childhood.