In Cold Blood

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Characters

Dick Hickock

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Characters Dick Hickock

Dick Hickock is a charming con man who orchestrates the circumstances of the Clutters’ deaths. Unlike Perry, Dick had a relatively loving upbringing, and his parents defend him until the very end. This familial support, however, may be partly to blame for Dick’s inability to take responsibility for his actions. Throughout the police’s interviews with the Hickocks and in the trial against him, Dick’s parents make excuses for their son’s behavior and see him as fundamentally good and unjustly persecuted, a perspective Dick internalizes. This perspective flies in the face of Dick’s actions. Though Perry agonizes over the murders, Dick doesn’t want to speak about them, as he is in denial about the darker aspects of his personality. For example, Dick’s true motivation for the plot against the Clutters is to rape Nancy. He tries to keep this pedophilic impulse secret, not because he feels it is wrong, but because he knows it would be perceived by others as wrong. Dick’s compulsion to act out his worst impulses combines with his sense that he is, deep down, a good person, and it causes him to move through life doing what he wants regardless of how it affects others, conning people into seeing him as a victim.

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