In Cold Blood Personal Respose

In Cold Blood

While reading In Cold Blood by Truman Capote I came across noteworthy passages that grabbed my attention. As Truman Capote introduces the characters, he shares more details on the Clutter family by dedicating entire chapters to Mr. Clutter, Mrs. Clutter, Nancy and Kenyon describing each of the characters personalities, traits, habits and interesting facts. Interestingly, while Capote gave long introductions to the Clutter family, he gave very brief introductions to Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. After thinking about it, I began to think that Capote give long introductions to the Clutter family making readers feel empathy and sympathy for this family over, of course, the villians.

I found Perry's breakfast choices very interesting and memorable. It was interesting to read about the pain that Perry suffers and therefore has to take aspirin, but he chooses to chew it up and states that he rather enjoys the taste. I also found it interesting that he chose to drink root beer and smoke cigarettes but never really taking in a full meal but instead trying to fight the pain that he is suffering.

As Capote goes on to describe Nancy Clutter I was taken aback by what a wonderful citizen she had become in life. Nancy gave her time and talents to the community and did everything she could to help other people. I loved how Capote described Nancy as a girl who, "felt it her duty to be available when younger girls came to her wanting help with their cooking, their sewing, or their music lessons - or, as often happened to confide," (page 18). Nancy was the type of girl that would do anything to help anybody and would not even hurt a fly. She worked each moment of her day to help others. It scared me to think that someone so close to perfect could be killed with a single bullet.

Mrs. Clutter's behavior to me was very noteworthy. I noticed how many times she appeared to be a sour mood and very tired. I wondered what could have happened to her to make her this way, seeing that she was married to very kind, successful, rich and loving husband. It appears that every day she follows the same routine. She wakes up in a crabby mood and is tired. She goes throughout the day in a nearly ghost state, does as minimal of work as possible, and then goes to bed in a bitter mood. I wonder if Mrs. Clutter suffered from a mental illness that no one was ever able to diagnose.

As the story progresses, Dick and Perry set out for a long car ride with a goal in mind. As they make each stop I began to pay more attention and notice the odds and ends they were picking up. Before they even left Dick's hometown they stopped in at the local car care center and began to do a self check up on the car to make sure it was ready for the long journey. Once they began their journey they stopped at a store to purchase rope and black rubber gloves. Seemingly, nothing suspicious when