I’m sure the whole of Holcomb would agree that the Clutter family was indeed an idealised American family living the idealised American dream. There was no doubt that they were each of good repute and were admired for their individual qualities. Herb was a “man’s man”, a self-made man and an everyman. His family followed in suit. Well-respected was the term that best described them. Unluckily, the Clutter’s halcyon days came to an end when they were murdered by two men who happened to be in pursuit of the same Dream. A coincidence? I think not.
In the murderers’ eyes, the Clutter family’s lives was an idyll, and this didn’t sit well with them. It was in their purest of intentions to shatter their Dream out of complete spite and jealousy, and their incompetence to attain the Dream itself. Despite being “the least likely to be murdered”, the Clutter family embodied the American Dream. This was something that was from the very beginning, out of reach for Richard and Perry. Hickock and Smith’s backstories were sob stories, and above all, the main cause for the Clutter murder.
Smith experienced his own set of childhood traumas and felt that he could never live up to his full potential, while Hickock merely wanted more; the normal standard of achievement was unworthy of his time. Together they shared a common enemy; “the Enemy was anyone who was someone (they) wanted to be or who had anything (they) wanted to have.”. Their outlooks on life were bitter and apathetic from the start due to their anguished pasts. Indirectly, the Clutter family did take the penalty for Dick’s and Perry’s dejection and frustrations.
There is a small yet recurring pattern while looking closely at the deaths of the Clutter family and the two murderers. A fine line is drawn between the theme of the American Life Ideal and Death in this novel. Dick and Perry’s executions, that ensued from their arrest and burning desire for more, just elucidates that there is no escape from death if you want to achieve that quintessential lifestyle. The same goes for the Clutter family, whose lives tragically ended by the hands of greed of those very wrongdoers.
Through Capote’s eyes, one can see the negative, perhaps fatalistic, side and consequences of the American Dream. It doesn’t matter through which means you are trying to pursue the Dream; starting from the bottom and building your way up to the top, or merely attempting to take away someone else’s Dream, Death will catch up to you. In a way, the novel is trying to portray the complete irrelevance of the Pursuit, that unfortunately goes hand in hand with the disengagement and voidness of character one unconsciously picks up.
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