READER’S RESPONSE JOURNAL (RRJ)

Book Title: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

Genre: Fantasy
Time Started: March 25, 2018
Time Ended: April 03, 2018
1. Book Summary

Herbert Clutter inspects his ranch on the morning of November 14, 1959. That same morning, on the
other side of Kansas, Perry Smith meets up with Dick Hickock. While the Clutters go about their daily
business, running errands and baking cherry pies, Hickock and Smith are tuning their car. After a long
drive, they pull up to the Clutter home with a shotgun and knife in hand.

That morning, the bodies are discovered by Susan Kidwell and another of Nancy's friends. Initially, the
police are baffled. Bobby Rupp is a suspect until he passes a lie detector test. Alvin Dewey, the KBI
agent in charge of the investigation, thinks that the killer must be someone close to the family. Rumor
sets the small town of Holcomb on fire. Hartman's Cafe is the center of numerous theories.

Meanwhile, Perry and Dick have returned to Dick's hometown of Olathe. Dick passes some hot checks,
and the two flee to Mexico. Perry has always dreamed of finding sunken treasure in Mexico. While the
investigation in Kansas begins to methodically follow up dead end leads, Perry and Dick spend some
time entertaining a rich German tourist before they run out of money in Mexico City. While packing to
return to the states, Perry goes through his personal belongings and remembers his childhood. His
mother and father rode the rodeo circuit until they had a falling out. Perry was passed from home to
home as a child. Now, two of his three siblings have killed themselves.

The investigation of the Clutter murders seems to be heading nowhere. However, a man in the Kansas
state prison at Lansing, Floyd Wells, hears of the murder case. Sure that Dick Hickock is responsible,
he begins to think of talking to the authorities. Meanwhile, Dick and Perry are hitchhiking in the
American desert. They try to steal a car, but fail. By this time, Floyd has confessed, and Dewey and his
team are beginning an elaborate manhunt.

Before they are caught, Dick and Perry steal a car, return to Kansas City, pass more hot checks, and
take up residence in Miami. They eventually backtrack to Las Vegas, where a policewoman recognizes
their license plate number. Dick confesses after intense questioning, and Perry follows suit. The trial
goes smoothly, and the two are condemned to death.

During a five-year appeals process, Dick and Perry languish in Death Row. Perry tries to starve himself
while Dick writes letters to various appeals organization. They are kept company by various appalling
criminals. When death comes, Dick is awkward and Perry is remorseful.
2. Book Reflection

Perry Smith and Dick Hickock are two very different men. Perry is intellectual, emotional, and
insecure. Dick is all talk and bravado. It’s Dick’s idea to break into the Clutter home, to murder any
witnesses, and run off with the money he believes they’ll find. Perry’s boyish hope that he’ll be able to
have an adventurous, treasure-hunting life leads him to team up with Dick. What’s fascinating is
Perry’s the one who ends up pulling the trigger. Dick, who was adamant that there would be “plenty of
hair on them-those walls” if witnesses got in their way, wasn’t able to pull the trigger. Perry, who
didn’t want to kill the Clutters, who tried to provide comfort for them in the final moments, is the one
who actually shoots each member of the family. If I were a student of psychology, I’d write my thesis
on the implications of this fact. How can a man tuck a young girl in her bed and then proceed to shoot
her close range with a shot gun? How can that same man place a cardboard box under a man (so he
wouldn’t have to lie on the cold floor) and then slit his throat without even realizing it? “He [Dick]
was holding the knife. I asked him for it, and he gave it to me, and I said, ‘Leave them alive, and this
won’t be any small rap. Ten years the very least.’ He still didn’t say anything. He was holding the
knife. I asked him for it, and he gave it to me, and I said, ‘All right, Dick. Here goes.’ But I didn’t
mean it. I meant to call his bluff, make him argue me out of it, make him admit he was a phony and a
coward…But I didn’t realize what I’d done till I heard the sound. Like somebody
drowning. Screaming under water.” The use of the word “coward” here in Perry’s confession is
important. Dick is a coward—weak—because he can’t shoot Herb Clutter. He can’t even definitively
tell Perry to do it. It’s as if being able to kill is what makes a man a man. Perry has an obsession with
masculinity, and that is evident here. He was drawn to Dick Hickock because Dick seemed a man’s
man, but he’s been proven wrong. I also imagine that being able to kill a man like Herb Clutter—
strong, masculine, successful, and in charge of his own life—is gratifying to Perry in some way. How
can he be weak if he can destroy something so strong?

While In Cold Blood doesn’t have a specific narrator, I can’t help but think of Perry Smith as the
narrator of the murderers’ point of view. When I think back on the description of where they’ve been,
what they’ve been doing, and who they’ve met, I can’t help but see it through Perry’s eyes. It has been
noted that Truman Capote was partial to Perry. As Amy Standen remarks in her Salon article, “After
‘In Cold Blood’ was published, Capote’s friends and detractors (and he had plenty of both) would
remark on the parallels between the author and Perry Smith, the more sensitive and guilt-ridden of the
two killers. Possibly, Capote felt a physical kinship to Smith…more likely he simply understood that
what separated him from Smith, more than anything, was luck.” I have to wonder if Perry Smith kept
Capote working on the book. I know he saw the potential for a new art form in telling the story of a
true crime in novel form, but I can’t help but think that the similarities between Perry and him offered
strong motivation keep writing. It’s almost as if Capote is writing an alternate ending to his own life—
if, of course, the book were fiction.

One interesting thing to note is the way Capote refers to the killers throughout the book. In the first
few sections, he primarily uses their first names. This serves to humanize the men. It provides a sense
of intimacy. Capote helps us get to know them just as equally as he helps us get to know the Clutters,
and by referring to both groups—the murderers and the murdered—in the same way, he puts them on
the same level. It’s the human level. This changes, though, after they’re arrested. As Jack De Bellis
notes in “Visions and Revisions,”: “Such attention to nuances of meaning enables Capote to de-
familiarize his characters by referring, for example, to the killers as Smith and Hickock, rather than
Perry and Dick, particularly after their capture.” Once they’re arrested and confess, it can’t be ignored
any longer. These men killed a family of four in cold blood. They now have to answer for their crimes
and we need to look at them more objectively. Does Perry Smith’s troubled past really matter when all
is said and done? Of course, it may explain how he ended up in the Clutter home with a gun in his
hand on that November night, but it can’t excuse the act. I think that’s what Capote wants us to
see. Understanding the psychology of a killer doesn’t negate the crime. Every person who has ever
intentionally killed someone has some sort of psychological discord, I’m sure. There is something in
the brain of a murderer that is different than the brain of someone who could never imagine doing such
a deed. That doesn’t mean the crime can’t or shouldn’t be punished. People like Smith and Hickock
are dangerous. We need to distance ourselves from them.
Rubric (Each criterion corresponds to 10 as the highest point)

Criteria Description Points

Content There is a significant information presented that
provides a refreshing input for the reader and
non-reader of the text.
Cohesion Shows a unity in terms of organizing thoughts or
ideas.
Technicality Presents mastery in grammar, spelling,
punctuation, and capitalization.
Manner of Delivery Show a distinct creative style of narrating events
to the reader.
Choice of words Displays a superb choice of words in a way that
the terms used are not elementary nor
highfalutin.
Rater

Submitted by: Libanan, Janthel B.