Hickock’s Personal Revolution
I actually really enjoyed In Cold Blood. Also sorry these all have been lacking italics, I write these blog posts in plain text so the copying doesn't really "get" it.
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote addresses a real-life event that he presents in a calculated narrative with some clear arguments. His presentation of the Clutter family, for example, though factual, has a clear intention to establish them as a stand-in for the possibilities of the “American Dream.” Richard “Dick” Hickock, one of the Clutter killers, sees this connection and resents it. Hickock grew up in the upper working class position that told him that he could survive, but not make anything great out of himself. Ultimately, Capote portrays Hickock’s plans to kill the Clutters as a search for an identity within the power dynamics of capitalism. This act is, perhaps subconsciously, a personal revolution which provides him with a sense of power in defiance of a system that leaves him feeling powerless.
Why does Hickock’s feel so powerless given his position? Surely, having done well in school and being of able body and skill, he could work his way into at least a livable if not middle-class existence. However, after all, this is one element of why he is so frustrated. His father comments on how he was, “‘A pretty good student… with A marks in several subjects. History. Mechanical drawing. After he graduated from high school June, 1949 - he wanted to go on to college. Study to be an engineer. But we couldn't do it. Plain didn't have the money… Our farm here, it's only forty-four acres - we hardly can scratch a living. I guess Dick resented it, not getting to college’” (102). Having earned good grades his whole school career, along with excelling in sport, he had created a personal identity that was consistent with the middle-class ideal: with hard work, he could achieve. When his family didn’t have the means to get him to college, this dream was shattered. Throughout the rest of his life, the reality of the cost of achievement weighs down on him.
This frustration is also visible when Capote describes two times he tries to get a job. Needing money, in Mexico and Miami, he searches for work as a mechanic. However, presented with his wage, he gives up. “‘Miami's worse than Mexico. Sixty-five cents! Not me. I'm white’” (127). Interestingly, he compares this power dynamic to another - that of race. The harsh reality of the “American dream” in 1959, is that the working class and Black Americans share a position of oppression. Black Americans on the whole still face job discrimination, low wages, and lack of high-paying education such as college. Hickock faces the same issues in being an unattached, connectionless, degreeless poor man. This oppression has the same cause: the white, wealthy ruling class denies others power for its own benefit and safety. In making this connection he acknowledges that this power dynamic exists in economic class, but he criticizes it. Still holding fast to the ideal of the “American dream,” the existence of this power dynamic is disillusioning and frustrating. It is the frustration with this lie that has caused him to search for power in other ways.
How, then, does this ultimate robbery, of the Clutters, represent this goal? The stated goal of the home invasion was to steal the ten thousand dollars of cash supposedly possessed by the Clutter family. Robbery is an obvious option for subversion of class - look at Robin Hood. Hickock, presented with no option to find success by “playing by the rules,” searches for ways he can subvert the system for his own good. In jail, this was not the only plan he devised. The KBI informant Floyd Wells said, “‘He talked a lot about what he planned to do when he got out. Said he thought he might go to Nevada, one of them missile-base towns, buy hisself a uniform, and pass hisself off as a Air Force officer. So he could hang out a regular washline of hot paper. That was one idea he told me’” (99). It’s a fairly crazy idea - and it doesn’t promise to make any especially large amount of money. The appeal is in the betrayal of the system, and this incident is not isolated. Floyd’s testimony says, “That was [just] one idea he told me.” What he ultimately goes through with, though, (and with the help of Perry he is able) is to rob the Clutter family, and then to kill all the witnesses. When Floyd describes a family which, as told by Capote, is affluent, powerful, and lives easily, Hickock sees his robbery as an ultimate expression of upheaval. The man, pushed down, rises against the pusher.
However, it is important, given the format of Capote’s work, to look at the author’s influence. This “nonfiction novel” format promises truth, but the author’s lens is, as always, present, and his clear desire to create the literary signposts of theme and consistent character may distort the facts. It is important to remember that the portrayal of Hickock’s character comes from Capote’s lens, rather than from Hickock himself, and there are some key points that show the degree of distortion in this lens, which mostly come in the form of relative emphasis. For example, it is extremely possible that Hickock’s primary motivation in the whole ordeal was to rape Nancy Clutter. However, Capote doesn’t even mention Hickock’s pedophilic tendencies until halfway through the story. Similarly, Hickock’s attempts to rape Nancy are not portrayed until the last quarter. Surely, it is possible that this comes from Hickock’s hesitance to speak about it, to the attempt at novelic suspense, or the lack of information to report. However, Hickock’s car crash is also de-emphasized. It is rarely mentioned, and not even connected to Hickock’s stability until the very end, through his mother’s testimony. And even then it is shot down immediately afterwards by a clever lawyer. Capote is perhaps reluctant to make Hickock a full character (whether for literary, personal, technical, or accidental reasons), but given the rest of Hickock’s portrayal, it also seems possible that this is Capote’s literary attempt to emphasize what he saw as the core of Hickock’s struggle, and de-emphasize what did not fit into his interpretation.
Hickock’s revolution - this Clutter home invasion - is not one meant to be society-shattering. It is personal. Yet it is also not meant to provide him some self-satisfying pleasure, even in the glory of upsetting the system. Ultimately, it is about identity. Hickock feels constrained by the limitations on his success, because society tells him who he can be. Not one to be told what to do, he wants to take his life into his own hands - and what better way to do this than through violence. The ultimate tool given to the disadvantaged, violence works for even someone who possesses nothing but a knife. Hickock sees himself as this revolutionary - upsetting the system by passing bad checks, making elaborate ruses, and stealing from the rich. And both to trick the justice system and to assert his ultimate power, he plans to kill the witnesses.
Yet Hickock also has a certain degree of identity in “normalness,” and he would be unable to carry out his plan alone. He even says it himself. “‘Deal me out, baby,’ Dick said. ‘I'm a normal.’ And Dick meant what he said. He thought himself as balanced, as sane as anyone” (67). Ultimately, he would be unable to carry out a murder, for the same reason most people could not. He has the instinct against violence and certain degree of empathy that his partner, Perry Smith, lacks. However he sees no qualms with recruiting Smith to do the deed, as his instinct against killing comes not from an ethical standpoint, but from an egotistical, instinctive standpoint. For, having not done the killing himself, he voices no regrets. Never does he admit guilt afterwards, and he cuts off Smith when confronted about it.
Capote’s portrays Hickock in this way to present a new theme. Hickock’s actions can be considered an inevitable result of his oppression, and his rationale parallels that of terrorist groups, low-income criminals, and others like himself. Hickock sees the potential of violence to upset power dynamics - anyone can threaten another violently, and it is essentially impossible to systematically prevent this. Capote presents this result as a warning, and presents, implicitly, an alternative to America’s obsession with justice. Perhaps providing opportunity and stability to everyone could remove the impetus for Hickock’s violent crime in the first place.
However more importantly, Capote’s portrayal of Hickock serves to expand his story’s already-present themes. While Smith is portrayed as a victim of circumstance, mentally challenged and without agency in the plot, Hickock is portrayed as a man frustrated and held down by the power dynamics in American society, who turns to violence as an ultimate upheaval. By distancing him from Smith and creating a new angle, Capote is able to use the two characters to indicate the extent of his theses about criminality and justice, specifically the death penalty. Though he uses Smith to appeal to the common viewpoint of the unfortunate victim of inappropriate (even if accurate) conviction, with Hickock he presents a stronger critique. Hickock is hanged having passed all the criteria for conviction even today, yet Capote questions how right this is. Capote says through Hickock, how can we oppress our neighbors to oblivion, and then kill them when they rise up in revolt?