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Chapter 3: The Answer - Coggle Diagram
Chapter 3: The Answer
Key quotes
"Not only had he known the murdered family, he knew very well who had murdered them" p162
"as the eyes of Hickock, Richard Eugene"
"the cat's eyes, radiant with pain and hatred, had drained her of pity and filed her with terror."p167
"Basketball! Baseball! Football!" p168
"if ever you seen him on a football field, if ever you seen him play with his children" p170
"Heartbig as a barn." (Dick's mother) p171
'middle-class, middle-income' p182
"I don't know. I don't care." p184
"But secrets are an unusual commodity in a town the size of Garden City." p193 - theme of community
"soft-fleshed businessmen and ranchers with sun-branded, coarse complexions" p198 - masculinity
"Dick...shrugged and grinned and trotted down to the ocean's edge" p203 - completely dismissive of Perry, sees him as inferior?
"Alvin took the call with just a towel around him" "The next thing was, suddenly Alvin had hold of me, he was hugging me" p215 (getting the call)
"Dick was sick of him - his harmonica, his aches and ills, his superstitions, the weepy, womanly eyes, the nagging, whispery voice. Suspicious, self-righteous, spiteful..." p217
""I won't listen, she said, "I mustn't. I won't."" p232
"The tough boy! Oh, a real brass boy. Wouldn't harm the fleas on a dog. Just run over the dog." p234
"When the crowd caught sight of the murderers, with their escort of blue-coated highway patrolmen, it fell silent, as though amazed to find them humanly shaped." p251
"plenty of folks are still keeping their doors locked and their guns ready" p233
Key events
Floyd Wells. p.151 -157 “ it was he who had guided Dick to the Clutters’ door.”
Dewey and Marie –p. 157-8
Nye interviews the Hickocks 158-165
Hitchhiking anecdote
Barbara Johnson
Dewey assesses the evidence p 182-185
Perry gets tense
Dewey receives the phone call p 190
Dick and Perry in Miami p.192-6
Effect on Holcomb p. 196 -200
The arrests
Context
Harold Nye was very upset at the creation of Dewey as the heroic lead investigator and felt sidelined
The murders shook the community as they were very close knit and afterwards, they became distrustful of each other
Death penalty was and is legal in Kansas and they were the last to receive the death penalty in Kansas
Capote’s biographer wrote that Capote saw Perry as being like a mirror of himself, as "his shadow, his dark side, the embodiment of his own accumulated angers and hurts".
It was a shock as the Clutters were seen as the 'least likely' people to be in the situation
Capote was very close to the Deweys and may have chosen Al to be the novel's 'hero' because of their close relationship
Capote was there when Al found out about the arrests