Picture Perfect

Society always wants perfection. It seeks for there to be no mistake and for everything to be picture perfect. When this is not so, there is calamity and fear. The places where this is least expected is where it hits the hardest. The impact creates mistrust and a shock that is hard to return from.

More than just a simple murder, the death of the Clutters is a stain in the picture perfect society that they live in. They represented everything perfect about it and that is why it affects the town so much. It makes the people feel lost and vulnerable. This is the first tme anything of this nature has happened in this town and the people don't know how to react toward it. This brings out new feelings within the citizens of the town that no one knows how to filter.

The distrust begins amongst the neighbors when this act takes place. Old friends and companions now "endure the unique expierience of distrusting eachother." (Pg 88) since this community is small and everyone knows everyone, this distrust has a bigger impact than if it was a big city. The wording Capote uses to describe this is correct. It is something new to them and it is a new expierience. Most readers probably don't understand this because they have expierienced this. It really highlight how unique this is to the residents of Holcomb.

A very good example of how this has affected the citizens of Holcomb is from a schoolteacher:

"Feeling wouldn't run half so high iif this had happened to anyone except the Clutters. Anyone less admired. Prosperous. Secure. But that family represented everything people hereabouts really value and respect..." (Pg 88)

The words used to describe what people value and respect show how the view of perfection was the Clutters. There is no mention of them as individuals or admiration of them for who they were. It is only what they represent, a seemingly perfect piece of society.