Later in the book the readers find more about the personal lives of Perry and Dick, mainly showing how mental issues arose in Perry’s life because of a bad childhood, which made him have anger outbursts. In the first part of the book “The Last to See Them Alive”, before the murders Capote gives the reader hints that Perry is indeed a natural born killer, while imprisoned Perry shares a story of him committing a murdering before.
“Perry described a murder, telling how simply for the hell of it,’’ he had killed a colored man in Las Vegas - beaten him to death with a bicycle chain. The anecdote elevated Dick’s opinion of Little Perry; he began to see more of him, and, like Willie-Jay, though for dissimilar reasons, gradually decided the Perry possessed unusual and valuable qualities. (Capote …show more content…
Within the dream, the diamonds represent excitement and the snakes protecting them is disinterests. The bird that is usually a parrot is depicted as Willie Jay, a person Perry views as a better friend than Dick. The snakes represent the nuns that beat him while he was in the orphanage. Dick, Perry’s father, and the nuns who abused him highlight the way Perry views things, his cognitive morals, and the many of his superstitions shared throughout the book.
Perry has been having the terrible dream since he was a child. Capote uses this dream as a symbol for Perry. The dream represents the hope inside of Perry, the hope that he will be saved from the mess caused by the murders, and carry him onto a better lifestyle. Perry’s dream also represents the hope to live out the rest of his days without abuse. Although the dream throughout the book is recurring and very crucial to him, Perry has not been able to press on out of trouble and start his new life, his american dream. Since Perry is never able to get rid of his dream he finally realizes that he will never be able to achieve the goals that he has looked up to for so long. In turn making him want to take the american dream away from others, so they may not reach their goals. That reason alone is why he decides to aid Dick in the burglary gone wrong, with the ultimate outcome of killing the Clutter family, taking away what he too is