In Cold Blood Flashcards
Narrator talking about Perry’s love for travelling, escapism
“The young man was an incessant conceiver of voyages..”
Narrator describing Perry’s small feet
“His tiny feet …. would have neatly fitted into a delicate lady’s dancing slippers”
Description of The river valley farm
“Rain or no, a patch of paradise”
Narrator describes Perry’s view of Dick in terms of masculinity
“It made Dick seem, compared to himself, ‘totally masculine’”
Description of Nancy’s bedroom as being very girlish
“Nancy’s bedroom was as frothy as a ballerinas tutu”
Dick’s promise to Perry before the Holcomb murders
“I promise you honey we’ll blast hair all over them walls”
Dick’s aspirations for life
“Dick, who wanted a ‘regular life’, with a business of his own, a house, a horse to ride, a new car, and plenty of ‘blonde chicken’”
The beginning of Perry’s escapism
“The parrot which had first flown into his dreams when he was seven years old”
Description of Perry as a child in an orphanage run by nuns
“A hated, hating, half-breed child living in a California orphanage run by nuns - shrouded disciplinarians”
Dick emphasising his ordinariness
“‘Deal me out baby’, Dick said. ‘I’m a normal’”
Perry speaks about how he didn’t want to harm Mr.Clutter
“I didn’t want to harm the man. I thought he was a very nice gentleman. Soft-spoken. I thought so right up to the moment I cut his throat”
Cats used as an ironic symbolism of Perry and Dick (1)
“Two grey cats who are always together”
Cats used as an ironic symbolism of Perry and Dick (2)
“Thin, dirty strays with strange and clever habits”
Perry describing the aftermath of the Clutter murders and the emotions they felt.
“‘Drove like hell, Dick driving. I think we both felt very high. I did. Very high and very relieved at the same time. Couldn’t stop laughing’”
A quote that suggests the sentencing for Dick and Perry to not be biased on mental health because they knew what they did was wrong
“M’Naughten Rule, the ancient British incorporation which contends that if the accused knew the nature of his act, and knew it was wrong, then he is mentally competent and responsible for his actions”
Clutter funeral/auction commentary
“Slightly more than five thousand people attended the Clutter auction…. Paul
Helm, remembering the burial of the murdered family said ‘it’s like a second funeral’”
Lowel Lee is not what he seems
“But inside the quiet young scholar there existed a second, unsuspected personality, one with stunted emotions and a distorted mind through which cold thoughts flowed in cruel directions”
Description of the prison cells
“The cells are identical. … are unfurnished except for a cot, a toilet, a basin and an overhead light bulb that is never extinguished night or day”
Lowell Lee killing his father
“…altogether his father absorbed seventeen bullets…”
Dewey’s recollection of Perry
“…for Perry possessed a quality, the aura of an exiled animal, a creature walking wounded … and when Dewey now opened his eyes, that is what he saw: the same childish feet, tilted, dangling”
Description of Susan, Nancy’s best friend, all grown up now
“… a pretty girl in a hurry, her smooth hair swinging, shining — just such a woman as Nancy might have been”
ICB ending
“…leaving behind him the big sky, the whisper of the wind voices in the wind-bent wheat”
Beginning icb deaths
Four shotgun blasts that, all told, ended six human lives.
Clutter family description
“A family likably high-spirited, yet hard working and neighbourly and generous”
