Personal Response, Part Two

The second section was where I couldn’t wait to see how the murderers were caught. It’s set up like a race against time, for both parties. The fact that the author constantly switches back and forth between characters means that we can see both of the groups’ progress. In my opinion, this makes the story more effective than a regular one-sided mystery, because we can see the strategies behind the actions of both the killers and the investigators of the Clutter case. We can also see that the killings didn’t just affect the lives of the townspeople. Now that Dick and Perry have killed the Clutters, they feel much more tolerant of crime than before, which makes them seem more dangerous. After Dick cons the salespeople, Perry respects him more for it. The fact that Dick has turned Perry into a killer means that they might murder anyone they need to in order to escape the police. Also, they can’t split, because, they don’t really trust each other. Dick is afraid that Perry will say something to the cops, and vice versa. They’re glued together because of this one mistake.

At this point, Perry and Dick know they’re doomed. They can’t make a future for themselves and are just trying to avoid the police for as long as possible. They don’t have a long-term plan, which means that deep down, they know they’re already caught. And the pathetic part is, they ruined their lives for no reason. They got nothing out of the experience, except police officers chasing them for the rest of their lives (and infamy, I guess). If they had done some solid research beforehand, they would have known that Mr. Clutter didn’t have any money hidden in the house. But they decided to go in and kill all the witnesses, without any confirmation that there was any money in the house at all. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that maybe, they subconsciously wanted to be caught.