Insanity In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

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The aspects that create a personality are built up upon two main guidances: family influence at a young age and inner conflicts. Balancing on a thin thread of neuro-normality and insanity, a personality is subjected to treatment that affects the individual’s view of life and the people around them. In the case of In Cold Blood by Truman Capote, there were two main characters that displayed these aspects with much adversity: Perry Smith and Dick Hickock. Both beginning from contrasting backgrounds and family homes, they miraculously ended up in equal situations: being caught committing a heinous murder that has been declared as one of the worst serial killings in Kansas history during the early 1960s. Therefore, Perry and Dick’s similar situations must be due to their innate psychological …show more content…

For the case of Perry, that would have been the motorcycle incident and for Dick, the automobile accident. Rather than having been deferred by family or their own impulses, a physical scan of their cranial functions could serve as a reasoning behind their similar situations. Another unlikely yet probable theory is that with both their characteristics aiding to each other’s inner Id, they created their similar situation. With Dick’s planning and ability to talk and Perry’s ruthlessness, their forces allowed them to carry out the murder cleanly. It is also possible that their similar situations were very possible, Perry could have met Willie Jay instead and not work with Dick, one of them could have shot the other throughout their trip, or they could have never went back to Kansas and provoked the police to heighten their case. Yet regardless of how it could have been avoided and the physical damage caused, Perry and Dick overall committed the crime based upon the personality that they acquired through their

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