Perry's Emotional Detachment

Perry’s insane emotional state is due partly to his own nature, but mostly to how he was nurtured as a child. Feeling a certain way about any instance for him usually proved to be less beneficial than not having any feelings at all. Because he was mistreated or abandoned by all of the adult figures in his life that he loved, he figured it better to rid himself off all of these emotions so as to rid himself of the pain they caused him. Because of these instances, Perry comes to view emotions as obstacles and does not realize that they are necessary for a sane existence. With this lack of normal emotions comes Perry’s inability to respond normally to any given situation. When talking to Don Cullivan Perry bitterly remarks about the murder that he doesn’t “feel anything about it. I wish I did. But nothing about it bothers me a bit” (291). Though most people would feel remorse, Perry does not because he has detached himself emotionally. Because of this detachment, Perry lives in a dream world. Instead of accepting reality he fantasizes about desires such as diving for gold and actually believes that there is a possibility of them happening. Even the psychiatrist Dr. Jones describes him as having “a poor ability to organize his thinking, he seems unable to scan or summarize his thought, becoming involved and sometimes lost in detail, and some of his thinking reflects a ‘magical’ quality, a disregard of reality” (297). Perry stripped himself of emotions, thus finding comfort only in a dream world.