Breakfast at Tiffany's: Difference between revisions

 

Capote's life had a great deal of influence on the novella. Capote was a teenager when he began writing books, and the narrator also was a writer in his teens. Capote once said, "I always knew that I wanted to be a writer and that I wanted to be rich and famous" (Krebs). The narrator wanted to be a success early in life, and Capote expressed himself in the same sense.  He knew "[he] had to be successful, and [he] had to be successful early" (Krebs). Capote turned into an alcholic because of his drinking at a young age. The narrator was also a heavy drinker. Holly and the narrator would go to the bar and drink many times. Capote was also a homosexual; his partner was Jack Dunphy [http://www.axiongraphicx.com/Capote.html]. In the novella, when the narrator is looking through Holly's book collection, he realizes that she only owns books about horses and baseball. The narrator has no interest in either subjuct. Holly mentions her love for horses and explains to the narrator how she does not like baseball at all, but she reads books about it for research purposes. Holly informs the narrator that if a man does not like either subject then she is in trouble any way because he does not like girls. The narrator's life in the novella is almost a mirror image of Capote.

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. 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).