Thursday, December 3, 2009
Death?
In these final chapters of “In Cold Blood”, Capote gives his audience even more to contemplate over. As a reader, you find Dick and Perry incarcerated and have already confessed to killing the Clutter family. The judge appointed to the Clutter family murder case comes to a verdict of Dick and Perry being put to death. This is where Capote presents his readers with the opportunity of choosing sides as to what Dick and Perry’s punishment should ultimately be. Dick and Perry are sentenced to the death penalty, but it seems as though Capote wants this to be questioned by his readers on the behalf of Perry. If you recall Perry is thought to be a paranoid schizophrenic, which might have been what shadowed his ability to distinguish rite from wrong during the time of the killing. This is one of the greatest challenges as a reader of “In Cold Blood”. Is Perry truly 100% guilty of killing the Clutter family? Or was his decision making skills impaired due to his mental state? Perry remains to be the most complex character in “In Cold Blood”. In this section of the reading, Capote’s personal views towards the case become apparent. I did some extra research about this particular chapter of “In Cold Blood”, and it said that Capote “wants his readers to know exactly what the court did not allow during the time of the trial.” In the book, a physiologist brought fourth to testify in the Clutter’s murder case states that he is “not sure as to whether the defendant could tell right from wrong at the time of the crime.” Capote portrays in “In Cold Blood” that the judge does not allow the physiologist to continue on with his thought; Capote presenting the case to his audience that the court (judge) did not have sufficient information in order to sentence Perry to death. It is believed that in this chapter Capote is making a “political statement”.
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For the most part I agree with Hayes in the way that the judge should have been able to know all of the fact such as the fact that Perry is a paranoid schizophrenic and that he was mentally unstable. However I do believe that even a mentally challenge individually who commits a quadruple homicide does deserve a harsh punishment. On the other hand the more innocent “killer” dick did under no circumstance deserve the death penalty because he never killed anyone and didn’t even tell Perry to kill the Clutters. Dick’s worst crime was being an accessory to murder and theft these two crimes would defiantly get some jail time how ever it should not have resulted in dicks death. The two “killers” knew they were in it together and turned what should have happened, jail time for Dick and death penalty for Perry, into what actually happened which was death penalty for the both of them. Going back to the trial where Perry sat silently, if he had spoken up and said that it was he who killed all of the Clutters I would bet that the judge wouldn’t have given Dick the death penalty, how ever his silence sealed Dick’s fate. On another hand Dick is as much to blame for his fate as Perry because, through out the trails he didn’t try to save himself by giving up Perry, which would have been the truth that he is the only killer. I believe that dick thought that if he had gotten out of prison he would have just ended up back in because he wants to kill people, dick is as messed up as Perry mentally and it is the combination of these things that created the unfortunate accident of fate, the murder of the Clutters.
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