Stereotypes Created “In Cold Blood”

People love stereotypes.  They love to categorize things into neat boxes tied up with bows.  They like to assume that every jock is a meathead, every southern accent is a straw-chewing hick, and every sorority girl is a brainless blonde.  But like it or not, life never neatly fits into a box.  Stereotypes always fall short.  Truman Capote uses his nonfiction novel, In Cold Blood, to show the strengths and weaknesses of stereotypes.  He conjures images as the Clutters as the All-American family and of the antagonists, Dick and Perry, as the classic Wild West fugitives.

But Capote exposes Dick and Perry as more than classic villains.  Within their relationship, a marital stereotype exists with Dick as the masculine, husband figure and Perry as the dreamy, wife figure.  Dick sports the manly name of, “Dick Hickock,” and calls Perry’s long-winded dreams of finding Spanish gold stupid.  He also creates a habit of calling Perry names such as, “honey,” or “baby,” or “darling.”  One can only imagine Dick’s demurring, manipulative tone.  In accordance with a female demeanor, Perry sings, draws, and plays guitar.  His physical stature is small and compact, while Dick is tall and manly.  As Dick and Perry flee from Holcomb, Kansas, their uneven relationship hits a note of tension that reappears later.

Capote follows Detective Dewey as he interrogates all possible suspects and friends of the Clutter family.  Dewey stumbles upon a break in the case that leads him to arrest Dick and Perry.  As Dick and Perry reveal the events of the blood-filled night, the reader learns that earlier stereotypes of Dick and Perry’s relationship do not hold true.  Readers originally believe, based upon earlier clues, that Dick killed all four members of the Clutter family while Perry hustled to make sure the family was comfortable while they died.  The drawn covers over the figures of two victims leads the reader to think that this was Perry’s idea of showing remorse for Dick’s bloody work.  But the stereotypes established by Capote reveals loop holes in Dick and Perry’s relationship that lend to the twist in the ending.  Readers learn that Perry committed all four murders.  Perry pulled the trigger.  Perry rebelled against his womanly stereotype and revealed his true brutal nature.  It seems as if Capote uses this moment to remind readers, never judge a book by its cover.