Essential Questions

[aliviasteffen]

Childhood is a time where a child is developing most, and it's when a child needs their parents guidance the most. Parents have tons of influence on their children, and thats why I believe that nurture is more important than nature. Young kids depend on their parents for guidance, love and attention for how they end up in the future, whether it be a cold blooded criminal, or a successful, caring adult. In "In Cold Blood," if Dick and Perry had grown up with kind, affectionate parents, none of the Clutter family would have been murdered, and neither Dick nor Perry would have ended up where they did. And I'm not saying that nurturing would change there cruel nature completely, but it would definitely have assisted it. You might say, "well, who's to say that had all the love and nurturing they needed?" and I honestly do not have a good response back to that, other than they might just be cold at heart and nothing can change your heart, as cheesy as that sounds. But, examples of nurturing turning out well for children would be the Clutter family. Herb Clutter was a kind, respectful, responsible, honorable man. He raised his own kids and you see how they turned out; Nancy was a successful, likable, popular high school student whom definitely had things going for her; she did many things such as baking, playing the piano and clarinet and starring in the school play-and Kenyon Clutter, too, was a successful student, whom was a little odd but definitely had things going for him as well. Mr. Clutter raised those kids and they turned out to be triumphant, as was Herb, even at such a young age. And that's the sad thing, their lives ended so abruptly before they could even live them to the fullest extent, all of them. But, back to my argument, when you are a child, you are not responsible for your own beliefs and behaviors, parents have a lot of influence on that, too. You grow up basically believing what your parents believe. For example; if you grow up in a house with a methodist religion, then you will more than likely end up being a Methodist, also. Same goes for behavior, if you live in a mostly hostile environment, then you will more than likely end up being a malicious being. And I suppose this is what happened with Dick and Perry, growing up in environments that were poisonous to them, ended up in them being the way they are-cold blooded murderers. They were "products of their own environment." As was all of Bonnie's and Herb's kids. They all turned out basically the way they wanted them too--successful respectful, responsible people. Responsible in the sense that they all turned out to be good people. Their kids ended up that way because thats how their environment was. They grew up seeing a respectful Herb, treating everyone with kindness and respect and fortunately, it rubbed off on his kids. And I really think this proves that growing up with the right care and in the right environment immensely affects how you turn out in the future.

[lauraboehm]

Due to the author, Capote also growing up in such a poisonous home environment, why did he end up so drastically different than that of the murders? He could have been in the same position as them, it all depends on someone's individual morals and beliefs and according to the unfortunate series of events, the murders did not end up having the correct social personal morals as someone who is not a criminal. So should not Capote end up a cold blooded killer due to his poisonous childhood?

[aliviasteffen]

That's something I didn't end up explaining in my response, but that is also true, sometimes being a poisonous environment can lead to directly the opposite, even though Capote came from a high class environment, and ended up the way he did, he still grew up around things such as his mother killing herself and neglection from his parents, as well as being a lonely child. But sometimes, people don't want to end that way in the future, and as you see, Capote grew up and ended up being successful man.