Breakfast at Tiffany's: Difference between revisions

| border            =  

| alt              =  

| author            = Truman Capote

| audio_read_by    =  

| genre            = [[Novella]]

| publisher        = Random House

'''''Breakfast at Tiffany’s''''' is a 1958 [[novel]]/[[novella]] by American writer [[Truman Capote]].

== Sections ==

===Capote/Narrator===

An aspiring writer who lives above Holly in his New York apartment. He is affectionately referred to as "Fred" by Holly until her brother dies.  After her brother's death, she only refers to him as "Buster".  He enjoys drinking bourbon and reading Simenon. He becomes friends with Holly and Joe Bell. He seems to be a passive man, and is suspected of being homosexual due to the lack of sexual nature of his and Holly's relationship.  His character closely resembles Capote in his own life. AKA the Capote Narrator.

===Holiday "Holly" Golightly===

Just shy of being 19 at the beginning of the story, Holly is described physically as ageless, having short, boy styled hair with a hodgepodge of colors including white blonde and yellow streaks (self colored), and being thin but a clean and healthy look about her. Her cheeks are pink and she has very large mouth and warm, blue, green, and brown eyes, which she hides behind large, prescription sunglasses at all hours. Her nose is turned up at the end, like a pixie.  She is always well groomed, with a tendency to dress in good taste, but plainly, in grays and blues which seems to make her shine even more.

She has no qualms about lying when it amuses or benefits her. She seems to have loyalties to no one except for her brother, Fred, with whom she fantasizes about having a horse farm near the sea in Mexico. Being rich and famous is in the top of her priorities. The narrator describes her as a lopsided romantic, as well as a crude exhibitionist, a time waster, and an utter fake.

Mistakenly said to be from Japan by Bell, but truly from California. He is a photographer featured in a magazine called Winchell,  and lived in the studio apartment, top floor of brownstone, during Holly’s time living there.   

Tall, delicate man, who wore a calico skirt. He is a talented wood sculptor from the S Tribe, in Tococul, East Anglia. He was photographed by Yunioshi on Christmas Day in 1956, depicting him with a "shy, yet vain smile, displaying in his hands an odd wood sculpture," of the head of Holly Golightly (p6). Shared a mat with Holly Golightly in Spring of that same year.

Tenant of brownstone. Described as a husky, coloratura (a singer, usually a soprano, who specializes in music characterized by trills and runs) who goes roller-skating every afternoon in Central Park. She began a petition in the brownstone to evict Holly for being “morally objectionable and the perpetrator of all night gatherings that endanger the safety and sanity of her neighbors (p. 64).” She did not like Holly and made no secret of it.

Holly’s favorite of four brothers. When the family was separated to live with different foster homes after their parents' death, she and Fred stayed together shuffled around to live with different "mean people".  He was discovered with Holly trying to steal food from Doc Golightly's farm by his oldest daughter.  He was the only one who would let her hug him when it was cold as a child. Described to be 6’2” and ‘slow’ or ‘stupid’.  After Holly ran away from Doc and his family, Fred stayed behing and eventually joined the military. He had a great love for peanut butter. Was in the 8th grade for three years, then was drafted into the army where he eventually died.

Looks like a monk with gold teeth to Holly. He speaks very little English. While in Sing Sing prison, he was visited every Thursday by Golightly, and gave her a “weather report”. Revealed to be the notorious Mafia-führer Salvatore "Sally" Tomato. At one time he would hang out at Joe Bell’s often, but didn’t socialize with anyone.

An agent who met Holly at Santa Anita, CA when she was 15. Smokes cigars, wears Knize cologne. Wears elevated heals, appears to be a midget, freckled, large head, bald, pointed elven ears, Pekingese eyes which are bulged and unpitying. Hair sprouts from his ears and nose, and he has hairy hands. He has a jerky metallic rhythm to his speech. Considers himself sensitive, and loves Holly.  

===Rusty (Rutherford) Trawler===

Middle aged, baby faced, fat and appeared to be a spoiled child. Lost both parents in 1908 at age 5, his father a victim of anarchist and his mother died of shock. This made him instantly a millionaire and celebrity. His godfather arrested for sodomy due to him, and has divorced 3 times. He offered to marry Unity Mitford if Hitler didn’t, thus was referred to as a Nazi by many. Attended rallies in Yorkville. Acts as though he should be in diapers, Holly said he should be wearing a skirt. Talks in a whiney voice. He thinks girls are literally dolls and although believed to be homosexual, he marries Mag Wildwood.

Her home town is Wildwood, Arkansas. Models for Yunioshi for the Bazaar. Described to be extremely thin, flat chested, and over 6 feet tall, with a stutter that she over exaggerates. She lives at the Winslow. All men in her family were soldiers, and there is a statue of her father in Wildwood. She is very proud of her country, and considers herself a warmhearted person. She knits. Temporarily roomed with Holly and was engaged to Jose. She was often referred to as being a lesbian.

A Brazilian with a German mother. He aims to be the president of Brazil. Has a strong latin accent, originally Wildwood’s lover and later became Holly’s. He is described to be intelligent, presentable, and very serious about his work, which is related to the government. He is in Washington 3 days a week. His priorities are maintaining his good name and work, and broke his engagement with Holly due to her arrest and publicity with Sally Tomato.

A girl who went to school with the narrator. Described as a top heavy realist with moist hair and greasy glasses covering flat eyes. She dissected frogs and went to picket lines, and only examined stars to gauge their chemical tonnage. Compared to Holly by the narrator to be a Siamese twin; they would never change because they’d been given their character too soon. (p.58)

Doc’s oldest daughter, discovered Fred and Lulamae stealing milk and turkey eggs from their farm when Holly was just fourteen years old.

The fat lady was the female detective that wore the civilian clothes. The fat lady hair was " thick yellow braids roped around her head."  The fat lady detective talk in a baby voice. She told Holly "come along, sister." You're going places." At this time, Holly did not want the fat lady hands touching her. Holly said: "Get them cotton-pickin hands off of me, you dreary,driveling old bull-dyke." This made the fat lady angry, so she slapped Holly so damned hard across her face,her head spinned to her over shoulder. As the detectives started to escort Holly down the stairs, she yells "please feed the cat." Holly refers to death as the fat lady, like the old saying "it ain't over till the fat lady sings".

The birdcage first appears in the story wile the narrator is walking down Third Avenue and sees it in the window of an antique store. The cage is described as "a mosque of minarets and bamboo rooms yearning to be filled with talkative parrots." (Capote 15) The narrator likes the cage but doesn’t purchase it because it costs three hundred and fifty dollars. Wile out on Third Avenue with Holly one afternoon the narrator remembers the birdcage and decides to show it to her where upon seeing it Holly "enjoyed the point, its fantasy", and said "But its still a cage." (Capote 55) The narrator is at Holly's apartment for Christmas when she presents him with the cage. "But holly! It's dreadful!" "I couldn't agree more; but I thought you wanted it." The narrator views the cage is dreadful because Holly spent the great amount of money on it as she did, but Holly views it in that manner due to what a cage symbolizes. Holly is a "free spirit" and tries to stay away from the caging of anything either in idea or physically caging something. An example of this would be when Holly is speaking to the narrator and says "A person ought to be able to marry men or women or-listen, if you came to me and said you wanted to hitch up with Man o' War, I'd respect your feeling" (Capote 83) Upon giving the narrator the cage Holly makes him promise to "never put a living thing in it". (Capote 59) In return the narrator gives Holly a Saint Christopher's Metal from Tiffany's.

Some have said that Capote's works were possibly influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe, but looking closely to Capote's own life experiences, this novella seems to be solely influenced by his own life with a bit of a flare. He was inspired by the women in his life to create Holly Golightly's character. As Clarke asserts, Capote modeled “his scatty central character...on half a dozen of the charming young beauties he had squired around Manhattan during and after World War II” (64). One woman who likes to take credit for inspiring Holly's character is Doris Lilly, who was like a sister to Capote in his youth. She actually lived in a “brownstone walk-up on East Seventy-eighth Street, exactly [like] the one in the book,” and says “there’s an awful lot of [her] in Holly Golightly” (Lilly 164). Also, Clarke states that "the one Holly most resembles, in spirit if not in body, is her creator. She not only shares his philosophy, but his fears and anxieties as well." (Clarke 313)

One more connection that can be made to see how Capote's own life was a big influence in the writing of the novel is the homosexual references in the book. Capote was a homosexual, one of the first well known people to actually come out and let people know he was a homosexual. This is very substantial, because in 50's and 60's it was not something that people talked about, it was taboo.

[[Category:Contemporary]]