Cold Blood :: Character Analysis, Perry Smith

In Truman Capotes non-fiction novel In Cold Blood, the Clutter familys murderers, Perry Smith and light beam Hickock, are exposed like never before. The novel allows the reader to experience an intimate understanding of the murderers pasts, thoughts, and feelings. It goes into great detail of Smith and Hickocks pasts which helps to explain the path of life they were walking leading up to the murders, as well as the thoughts that were running through their minds later the killings.Perry Smith was a short man with a large torso. At first glance, he seemed a more normal-sized man, a powerful man, with the shoulders, the arms, the thick, crouching torso of a weight lifter. However when he stood up he was no taller than a twelve-year old child (15). What Smith lacked in stature, he made up in knowledge. Perry was a dictionary buff, a devotee of obscure words (22). As an adolescent, he craved literature and loved to gain insight of the imaginary worlds he break loose into, for Perrys re ality was nothing less than a living nightmare. His mother was an alcoholic and had strangled to death on her own vomit (110). Smith had 2 sisters and an older brother. His sister Fern had committed suicide by jumping out of a window and his brother Jimmy followed Ferns suit and committed suicide the day after his wife had killed herself. Perrys sister, Barbara, was the only normal one and had made a good life for herself. These traumatic events left Perry mentally seismal and ultimately landed him in jail, where he came into acquaintance with Dick Hickock, who was in jail for passing bad checks. Dick and Perry became friends and this new friendship changed the course of their lives forever. Hickock outright made note of Perrys odd personality and stated that there was something wrong with Little Perry. Perry could be such a kid, always wetting his turn in and crying in his sleep. And often Dick had seen him sit for hours just sucking his thumb. In some ways old Perry was spook y as hell. Take, for instance, that temper of his of his. He could sliding board into a fury quicker than ten drunk Indians. And yet you wouldnt know it. He might be ready to kill you, but youd never know it, not to look at it or listen to it (108). Perrys short fuse and dysfunctional background were the two pieces to Perrys infect life puzzle that soured and tainted the final picture.