Crazy?

Perry keeps bringing up the murder and its annoying Dick. He keeps wanting to talk about it and questions whether they will really get away with it. In this particular moment is when all the quirks and issues of the murderers really come out. Especially about Perry but then it highlights what a cold person Dick really is.

Perry seems serene in the surface but the more you read on in this book, you realize he has a troubled past. One of Dicks descriptions of his partner is from when they were in jail together: "Perry could be "such a kid" always wetting his bead and crying in his sleep, and often dick had seen him "sit for hours just sucking his thumb…". (pg 108) This really does show that maybe Perry was severely traumatized when he was little and clings to that child part of him. Maybe he clings to it because he doesn't feel he went through that stage and is fixated on it. There is a branch of this in psychology made by Freud that involves stages a human goes through. When someone becomes fixated on one of them he grows up to have troubles as an adult.

Dick is the badass of the two. He is only taking advantage of Perry and completely using his love for maps and treasure against him. He wants to believe Perry won't doubt what they have done since he is not bothered by it. He does not want to discuss what happened and simply chooses to go on living. Maybe this foreshadows how Perry will be the one that comes clean about the murder first. 

Perry is troubled by what happened and even says that he never thought he would do something like that. Then when Dick asks him about his previous murder, a "nigger" he allegedly beat to death, Perry seems weird. The murder of the Clutters shakes him up more because he is certain they wing get away with it. He believes that "anyone could get away with a thing like that. Because I don't see how it is possible. To do what we did. …" (pg 109). He is shaken and is bugged by the feeling that something is going to happen. this brings attention to his believe in superstitions and questions them.

I think the murder will get to Dick eventually. Right now Perry is Macbeth and Dick is Lady Macbeth. He is the first one to start "seeing the ghost" of the murder that they have done. Dick might not be a femme fatal but sooner or later his actions will catch up to his psychology and he will be rubbing spots off his skin.