Mirrors

            I read this book once. (This is when all of my friends resume to throw themselves back in upturned laughter at the ridiculousness of my statement. And by ridiculous I mean obviousness and expected aspect of it. I always read). So I was ready this book and the man, talking about a certain woman, said, “She doesn’t mind empty promises. She likes pretty words.” And I thought of some of the aphorisms of In Cold Blood that just pry themselves into my memory, my consciousness plagued with their existence. They are leeches draining me from logic, that’s how beautiful Capote’s words are. And I strife to suss out just what exactly he means to say, and sometimes I wonder if there is any point to them. But I don’t mind. They’re pretty.

            But God knows writers don’t just write meaningless rabble. This novel especially doesn’t seem like the type to state things that don’t make a difference to the plot of the story, that don’t have some type of purpose. The one that captured my attention the most was when Perry was walking outside of the café to meet up with Dick and he looked at his reflection and the narrator said:

             “His own face enthralled him. Each angle of it induced a different impression. It was a change-face, and mirror-guided experiments had taught him how to ring the changes, how to look now ominous, now impish, now soulful; a tilt of the head, a twist of the lips, and the corrupt gypsy became the gentle romantic.”

            Of course, what Capote means to say is that Perry is the ever-talented deceiver. But the phrasing, the pure music of the words, is just beautiful. At first the reader sees this bit of information as somewhat negative, Perry as a conceited male that can’t seem to loose thirst for his utterly refreshing countenance. But there’s more to that. It’s a “change-face”, a noun, as if it were an object you encounter everyday. Mirrors are not his way of basking in ego and aesthetics, mirrors are his path to accomplishing his goal of great fraud. They are his mentor. Unlike most human that occupies this earth, to Perry, mirrors don’t show him what he is, they show him what he can become. And, quite frankly, I’m scared of what it is exactly that he can become. Haunting and beautiful in its exposition, this quotation shows the pure wickedness that encompasses Perry as a character. Not only a character, but as a person.

            Every Bonnie has to have a Clyde. Perry’s Clyde is dick in all his logical and non-artistic glory because, “when you got right down toot, Dick's literalness, his pragmatic approach to every subject, was the primary reason Perry had been attracted to him, for it made Dick seem, compared to himself, so authentically tough, invulnerable, "totally masculine."” Here we see a type of FOIL in the, I guess you could call them antagonists, of the story. There’s a balance. Not only that, but therein lies a kind of lack in confidence, demure quality then that lies within Perry. The above quotation implies that Perry sees himself as not very tough, maybe even vulnerable, and not completely “masculine.” He, consciously or not, is with Dick because it fulfills the aspect of a man that he cannot fulfill himself.

            It is not a healthy relationship. It sounds irrelevant, but a romantic relationship in which one person feels that their partner completes them in a way and is ergo not free to feel fully independent and complete without said person, is unhealthy. This is not romantic, obviously. But it runs the same lines. And it says a lot about Perry and Dick and maybe helps understand their actions.