Every day we observe people's conflicting opinions. Whether it's politics, school, or your personal life, emotions are often an important factor when it comes to expressing your ideas. In writing, the audience must be aware of this and decide for themselves whether an author is biased or represents all aspects of a situation equally. In both Into the Wild and In Cold Blood, the authors form distinct opinions about their main characters and believe that the family structure has greatly influenced their futures. Truman Capote forms a close relationship with convicted murderer, Perry Smith, and allows his personal perception of Perry to influence his story. Capote repeatedly highlights the fact that Perry comes from a troubled background and paints him as a victim rather than a killer. Perry confesses one night in which he "remembers that [his] mother was 'entertaining' some sailors while [his] father was away...And [his] father, after a violent scuffle, threw the sailors out and began to beat them] mother . [He] was terribly scared" (265). Capote includes Perry's memories of his abusive father and alcoholic mother to evoke audience sympathy and further emphasize Perry's overall demeanor of innocence. Capote also chooses to highlight Perry's horrible experience when "[his] mother placed him in a Catholic orphanage, the one where black widows always hit him for wetting the bed” (152). to highlight the terrible conditions in which Perry succumbed to the orphanage, Capote also describes the nuns using the metaphor of "black widows" to further enhance the audience's caring feelings towards Perry as the color black is usually... paper medium.... ..therefore able to place McCandless's death on the shoulders of his family. Read a literary work, the audience should be aware of the fact that the author's personal opinion is thrown in he is able to easily relate to McCandless and therefore freely expresses his opinion throughout the novel. In contrast, Truman Capote is unable to have an intimate relationship with the convicted murderer, Perry Smith, and is unable to do so. with the late Clutter family. This results in a novel that is highly sympathetic to Perry when questionable it should be to the Clutters. Regardless of the story, both authors express the overarching belief that family structure played a role in the characters' fates. WORKS CITED Capote, Truman. In cold blood. New York: Random House. 1965. Krakauer, Jon. In the wild nature. New York: Anchor, 1997. Print.