Contributions to society and its effects in Capote's Cold Blood and Potok's My Name is Asher The characters of Truman Capote, Perry Smith and Dick Hancock, used in one of his most famous works In Cold Blood, finds the ways in which their contributions to society, in their personal lives and in the surrounding community, lead them to a fatal state of regret, remorse and reality, all consequences caused by their own actions and decisions . Chaim Potok, author of My Name is Asher Lev, creates a similar theme of how his characters contribute to society. Although with a different community and individuality of the characters, both works establish a series of unexpected contributions and reactions of the two communities for each. Truman's characters, Perry and Dick, contributed to Texas society and community by murdering the Clutter family. After hearing the news of the murder of the “perfect” family, who many describe as “very fond of Herb and Bonnie [Clutter]…and saw them every Sunday at church, and even though [one] didn't know about the family, and they liked them so much, [they] wouldn't have felt [less sad]'” (Capete 80), community members feel insecure, unprotected and eventually come to the realization of the reality that they are actually not all perfect individuals who live in a perfect community. People in the small Texas community of Clutter look down on both Perry and Dick without even knowing that they were the killers at the time, simply because they committed a crime that caused anguish and pain to those who knew the family. Asher Lev – a devout Hasidic and Orthodox Jew – was in a similar situation with his own community but did not commit a literal crime, such as murder. As devoted as he was to his religion, Asher became even more devoted to art and painted his first painting which was a crucifixion, despite the ideology that “observant Jews paint crucifixions. In fact, observant Jews don't paint at all – the way [he painted]” (Potok 3). Once exposed to his community, Asher, along with his paintings, was criticized for the most disparate reasons; some of whom claimed that he was going against all the rules and morals that a Jew should have: devotion to God and religion, respect for one's parents, for oneself and for other members of the Jewish community..