Opposites

Once Perry and Dick get caught with their heinous crime, the nation is looking at them as terrible people. They are recognized everywhere just by this one act, and it seems like they are the most known people in Kansas for a while. There are always stories published about the progress of the crime. It seems like Perry regrets he ever did this crime. He doesn't know what he was thinking, and he thinks that he should be killed because of his crime. He regrets hanging around with Dick and being involved in something so stupid. He accepts the fact that he is about to be put to death. He thinks, "The crime was 'unforgivable', and he fully expected to climb those thirteen steps," (265). He is taking full responsibility for his actions, when before we read this it seemed as though Perry was the killer, and that people had no sympathy for him being punished for such awful crimes. He knows that he did something wrong, and he is ready to take responsibility for his actions. Dick has the exact opposite approach to this whole situation as Perry has. The whole time he has been blaming Perry for the crime and has been telling the authorities that "he killed them all", and that Perry should be the only one to get in trouble. This whole thing was Dick's idea, and he was the one who planned all of this out, which was to kill the Clutter family and rob their house. Dick, was not ready to get hung and walk those long treacherous steps towards death. Instead, he tries to devise a plan to get himself out of the slammer, and on to a better life. He wants to escape to the mountains. "He decided to 'bust jail'. Grab a car and raise dust. But first he must have a weapon, and over a period of weeks he'd been making one, one that would fit with lethal niceness between the shoulderblades of Undersheriff Meier. If the escape succeded, he planned to head for the Colorado Mountains, and find a cabin where he could hide," (263) Dick thought. He has the exact opposite approach in this situation as Perry does. Dick should follow Perry's example and just accept the death penalty for killing the Clutters. In this situation, Perry and Dick have the exact opposite thought, whats new?