In Cold Blood Part IV - 3.20.16

     In Part IV, of Truman Capote’s non-fiction novel, In Cold Blood, we learn more about the case involving Dick Hickock and Perry Smith. As we learned in the previous chapter, each murderer had their own confession, both had contrasted one another. Dick’s confession had included that he did not kill any of the Clutter family, and that Perry had in fact killed the entire family. While Perry’s confession was that they had taken equal parts in it. However, we come to learn in part four that Perry had in fact killed all member’s of the family. Now, in the later part of chapter four we learn more about the other death row inmates like George York, James Latham, Lowell Lee Andrews, and the two character’s that we have been learning about and following throughout the book. I believe that Capote introduces the characters to show the parallels and differences between each one of them — why they were there, their purpose, and so on. Andrews was probably used to show a parallel to Dick as Andrews himself showed no remorse for his actions (which happened to be killing his own family and framing it as if someone else did it, very psychopath like, in my opinion) and also because Dick had showed no remorse for his actions in the earlier chapters… Maybe because he did not actually do much about the murders, but he was still there and could have done something to prevent the four deaths that occurred that evening. The two newer men that are introduced are Latham and York, who were put into death row because they had gone on a multi-state killing spree because they believed that the world was essentially against them. I feel like these two characters were introduced as well because I also think that Perry and Dick had thought the world was against them… Mainly because they were both in accidents and had rough lives for various reasons. Honestly, I do not really respond to these characters like I do to Perry and Dick, mostly because I do not know them as well, and have a better liking for them. With these character’s I feel mostly bad for Dick, even though I used to not. I used to feel bad for Perry because of how he was treated by Dick and so on. Dick had not killed anyone in the Clutter family, according to his confession and the changed confession by Perry which shows essentially just how wrongly treated he was by the court system. So, in the end of In Cold Blood, I view the characters of Dick and Perry not as equals, but both as criminals of course for they both partake in the act of murder in some degree. I view them differently because Perry had killed four people in a matter of minutes and merely almost got away with it, and also because Dick was being thrown into Death Row for basically just being a witness to the crimes — however, he had also planned them. All in all, I view the ending of this book to be quite depressing yet uplifting at the same time… Capote uses a great job in the end showing parallels and contrasting the Death Row characters and using the cats in town square as a great metaphor to Dick and Perry always being on the move and (typically) scrapping for food.