Naturally Normal Is there a black sheep in society? The answer may be obvious, but what are the qualifications of the part? In society, there are popular trends that many adore, but when someone does not include themselves into those trends, then they are immediately outcasted and labeled “not normal.” The big question is, who makes the rules for humanity to follow and how does the past affect the decisions? In the thrilling nonfiction novel “In Cold Blood,” written by Truman Capote, the writer provides information on the traumatic past of Perry Smith, the average early life of Dick Hickock, and the duo’s ideas of normality all while contrasting their different upbringings in order to reveal society’s cruel definition of what normal is. Coming from a broken home, Perry Smith had to face many…show more content… The one where the...[nuns]...were always...hitting [him]” (Capote 132). This is the major turnpoint in Perry’s life. He was tossed between two parents like a ball and was eventually thrown to the side because no one wanted him, which creates the fear of abandonment at a young age because of the traumatic event that he experienced. His clingy behavior that he possessed throughout adulthood is most likely the outcome of the abandonment that he suffered as a child. Soon, the terrifying nuns, whom which Perry was left to, turned into “older children, his father, a faithless girl, a sergeant he’d known since the army” which created a long string of abusers that Perry came across (Capote 93). All of his life, Perry did not have one positive role model in his life which made him look up to anyone who possessed charm or dominance—just like Dick. Dick inspired Perry to act tough in order to make an impression on him, which led Perry to make the worst decision of his life—the murder of the Clutter family. In society’s eyes, “Perry Smith’s life had been no bed of roses but pitiful, and ugly and lonely progress toward one mirage and