Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

Perry Smith and Alvin Dewey

What?!

Are we going out on a limb here by calling a cold-blooded mass murderer a protagonist? Well, he fits some of Shmoop's requirements for the role. Perry's no gallon of ice cream, as he himself would say, but we have to say he's the main character of the story and the center of the action. We learn much more about his inner life than any other character, by a long shot. In fact, we learn so much about his vulnerabilities, his childhood abuse, and his shattered dreams that we even respond sympathetically to him. (Capote sure did.) You can't help but feel something for this wretched kid who thinks he could have been somebody if life hadn't gotten in the way. He tried in a pathetic and kinda sad way to better himself—memorizing all those fancy words and thinking philosophical thoughts. By the time of our story, though, it's way too late for Perry. We're not exactly rooting for him, but we get inside his head and care about the character.

But all protagonists need an antagonist, and who is Perry's? Our vote is that it's—Perry himself. He's the evil he can't conquer.

But wait. Truth, Justice, and the American Way just called and nominated another protagonist: Agent Alvin Dewey. He's a hero we can truly root for. Although some critics think Capote inflated Dewey's importance to the investigation, in the book he's the one driving the search for the killers. At the outset, he vows to track them down if it takes the rest of his life and he spends the rest of the book persistently and aggressively doing just that. Perry's confession to Dewey about the night of terror and brutality at the Clutter home is the centerpiece of the book. And Dewey's the one who wraps up the story. The book ends with us getting a look at his sense of closure about the case (in a possibly fabricated scene, but no matter). That seems to suggest that we should care most about Dewey's feelings, like we would for any protagonist.