At the
heart of lies the question of how the central eventthe brutal and
meaningless killings of the Clutter familycould have been perpetrated by two men whose outward
appearance and behavior were basically that of ordinary human beings. The one who actually
committed the murders, Perry Smith, was a man who might have been described as
"sensitive" and who had artistic ambitions. Everyone who dealt with the case struggled
with the mystery of what motivated these men. The "nature" vs. " nurture"
issue has always been one of importance to psychologists, but there has never been a definitive
resolution of it. In this book, Capote makes no attempt to draw an actual conclusion as to which
of these forces is the decisive or more powerful one. He merely lays out the evidence and leaves
it to us as readers to evaluate it.
Most observers would regard the
"nurture" aspect of Perry's background as significant: he had an abusive father and an
alcoholic mother. With Dick, on the...
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