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The Theme Of Redemption In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

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The Theme Of Redemption In Truman Capote's In Cold Blood
What does it mean to be Redeemed?
Trevor Jordan
5-21-11
Lampa Redemption is a black and white subject, one can either achieve it or fail and hold on to their troubled past for life. Redemption is when one admits to and repents for their bad deeds and truly feels sorry, then that person does a good deed to counteract the bad one and evens out their life’s “score”. Truman Capote and Oscar Wilde demonstrate that the characters in their books do not achieve redemption because they do not take the necessary actions to be redeemed.

In Capote’s In Cold Blood, Dick Hickock and Perry Smith committed a quadruple homicide in Holcomb Kansas; they have been caught and now are sitting in death row awaiting their final day. Now Dick and Perry could not perform a good deed to cancel out their bad one because they have been …show more content…
They could have stopped prolonging their inevitable death “why haven’t Smith and Hickock got it in the neck, how come they are still eating up the taxpayers’ money” (page 335) by owning up to their action and accepting their punishment and apologizing sincerely for the crime. But Hickock fought the death penalty “I believe in hanging. Just so long as I’m not the one being hanged” (page 336) for 3 years before he and Smith were sentenced to death. Neither one of them apologized sincerely for the murder, Dick was making jokes about dying to jail friend Andy before he was about to be hung. Dick said to him “I’ll be seeing you soon…So scout around and see if you can’t find a cool shady spot for us Down There” as if he could care less about what he did and he will make no effort to set things right in his life. Also the manner in which Dick acted before he was hung, he said “You people are sending me to a
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