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Breakfast at Tiffany's Section 5: Difference between revisions
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==Commentary== | ==Commentary== | ||
Self-deception is not one of Holly's failings, although she is an extraordinary liar. It doesn't trouble her to beguile others when it suits her purpose. She constructs a world around her to make things as pleasant as she can, inventing stories when the truth is too painful to discuss. Berman, who calls Holly a "phony", modifies it to "a ''real'' phony," because, he claims, "she believes all this crap she believes." The narrator doesn't think of Holly that way (Garson 82). | <blockquote>Self-deception is not one of Holly's failings, although she is an extraordinary liar. It doesn't trouble her to beguile others when it suits her purpose. She constructs a world around her to make things as pleasant as she can, inventing stories when the truth is too painful to discuss. Berman, who calls Holly a "phony", modifies it to "a ''real'' phony," because, he claims, "she believes all this crap she believes." The narrator doesn't think of Holly that way (Garson 82).</blockquote> | ||
Since her moral code differs from that of society, Holly has no qualms about lying. To protect herself or to keep people from getting too close, or from knowing too much about her, she fabricates. She fictionalizes when reality is grim and threatens to bring on the "blues" (sadness), or the "mean reds" (fear/angst). Unwilling to share her memories of her early life. Holly invents a beautiful fantasy childhood for herself when the narrator tells her of his own unhappy boyhood. | <blockquote>Since her moral code differs from that of society, Holly has no qualms about lying. To protect herself or to keep people from getting too close, or from knowing too much about her, she fabricates. She fictionalizes when reality is grim and threatens to bring on the "blues" (sadness), or the "mean reds" (fear/angst). Unwilling to share her memories of her early life. Holly invents a beautiful fantasy childhood for herself when the narrator tells her of his own unhappy boyhood. | ||
Holly also lies when a situation is not to her liking. At the first party, when an acquaintance, Mag Wildwood, barges in and draws the attention of all the men, Holly retaliates by insinuating that Mag has a terrible disease. Another time, to keep Mag from learning that she has slept with Mag's lover, Jose, Holly breezily pretends she is a lesbian, partly to deceive Mag and partly for the humor of the deception (Garson 82, 83). | Holly also lies when a situation is not to her liking. At the first party, when an acquaintance, Mag Wildwood, barges in and draws the attention of all the men, Holly retaliates by insinuating that Mag has a terrible disease. Another time, to keep Mag from learning that she has slept with Mag's lover, Jose, Holly breezily pretends she is a lesbian, partly to deceive Mag and partly for the humor of the deception (Garson 82, 83).</blockquote> | ||
Holly's moral code and the fact that she is a real phony are exemplified in this section when she goes to the library and reads through books about Brazil and South America. Holly is trying to morph herself into a person from South America and this is our first clue that Holly is planning on going back to Brazil with Jose (whether Jose knows this or not is not presented to us). I believe this is what O.J. means by a "real phony". She is definitely not from Brazil, or even South America, but by the time she makes it there, she will be able to act like she has lived there all her life, as shown to us by the way she could change from a farm-raised girl to a Hollywood actress to a New York [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeloader freeloader]. But we must sympathize with Holly, for like Hassan points out, "even Holly's incorrigible tomcat finds at last a home with potted palms and lace curtains, a home and a name; but for Holly the narrator can only pray that she may be granted, sometime, somewhere, the same" (5-21). | Holly's moral code and the fact that she is a real phony are exemplified in this section when she goes to the library and reads through books about Brazil and South America. Holly is trying to morph herself into a person from South America and this is our first clue that Holly is planning on going back to Brazil with Jose (whether Jose knows this or not is not presented to us). I believe this is what O.J. means by a "real phony". She is definitely not from Brazil, or even South America, but by the time she makes it there, she will be able to act like she has lived there all her life, as shown to us by the way she could change from a farm-raised girl to a Hollywood actress to a New York [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeloader freeloader]. But we must sympathize with Holly, for like Hassan points out, "even Holly's incorrigible tomcat finds at last a home with potted palms and lace curtains, a home and a name; but for Holly the narrator can only pray that she may be granted, sometime, somewhere, the same" (5-21). | ||