Book Compared To Film In Breakfast At Tiffany’sdocx

=== Book compared to film in Breakfast at Tiffany's ===

UNIVERSITATEA DIN ORADEA

FACULTATEA DE LITERE

LUCRARE DE DIPLOMĂ

”BOOK COMPARED TO FILM IN BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S ”

COORDONATOR ȘTIINȚIFIC:

Lect. Univ. Dr. MIHAELA OGĂȘANU

ABSOLVENTA:

ALEXANDRA ANDREA CRIȘAN

ORADEA 2015

Argument

I chose to write this paper because I consider that aims to investigate the main features of the female representation in a ‘1960s mainstream Hollywood film. So I have chosen to analyse ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s(1961). The central idea of the paper will be to investigate in which ways the film differs from the original novella by the same namea and to analyse some parts of the book that are important. . The importance of this investigation will be on the main character, Holly Golightly, and the differences between her representation in the novella and in the film, and the nature of the relationship she has with the main male character / narrator, too.I have chosen this particular film and novella since I believe that the changes done for the screen adapted version demonstrate how the features of the dominant image and general representation of women in the film at the time may have influenced the plot.

I consider Holly to be a strong but also sensitive woman who fight to get rid of the past and who leaves everything she lived in the past behind. She wants to be free, independent, admired by men and she does not want to belong to anybody. She hates to be put in ”cage”- this could be the society and the people around her. She likes to give party, to have fun even if people would judge her being a weak woman. She only sees the men because she needs money . Holly escapes the conventional existence. She does not name her cat because she feels the cat doaes not belong to her. Another central idea in the book is the sexual identity and orientation which i think faces a realistic problem. Holly has a platonic relationship both with the narrator and with Joe Bell. It was very interesting to watch how Holly looks for her identity . She has a very liberal view of marriage .

Her name is a meaning for holiday- a woman who like to travel if she wants to be happy. She cannot stay tied to a place much time. She likes to change locations-as if she changes her identity . she seraches for the place she could call ”home”. The novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s explicitly questions the narrow definitions of love and relationship that were dominant in the society at the time (and dare I say still are). Where novella celebrates the fluidity of sexuality and no fixed values whatsoever when it comes to relationships, the film offers a very clear cut and one-dimensional view. The film celebrates stability over fluidity and the dominant idea of heterosexual romance. These significant changes in the representation of the lead character and the fact that some of the important themes of the novella were ignored show how a plot can be influenced by some of the dominant power structures of the period. However, despite this fact, Holly’s character can still be considered to be groundbreaking when it comes to the issue of the female film representation and this is something that should be acknowledged as well. Even thought Holly’s travelling stops short in the film, her character to some extent still managed to mark the shift from the prevailingly moral female representation that was dominant during the previous decade. It was a small, but an important step. In the end, what made the character significant at the time was not the fact that she got Paul in the end; instead it was the fact that she managed to get away with all sorts of nonconformity without paying any price.

It should be further discussed how the film might be different if the book was being adapted today. Also, Holly Golightly’s character seems to bear a lot of resemblance to some contemporary popular female characters, most notably . The significance of this can be discussed in regard to the dominant portrayal of female characters through out the history of Hollywood.

Chapter 1

Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on September 30, 1924, Truman Capote went on to be a professional writer. His book Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) was put into a popular film, and his work  In Cold Blood (1966) was astart form of narrative non-fiction. Capote lived his later years searching celebrity and fought with drug addiction. He died in 1984 in Los Angeles, California.

Early Life

Truman Capote was born Truman Streckfus Persons on September 30, 1924, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is one of the 20th century's well-known writers, being fascinating a character similar to those in his stories.His parents – named Lillie Mae and Arch—have been two normal people. Capote lived much of his young life being cared by his mother's relatives in Monroeville, Alabama.

In Monroeville, Capote became a friend of Harper Lee. They were different personalities—Capote being sensitive and delicate boy who was helped by other kids for becoming a wimp, and Lee was a rough boy. . Despite this fact, Lee found Capote to be a charming boy, because he saw him being creative and inventive in different ways. Not many people knew how to become a writer those days.

While he had fun with his friends, Capote also had to fight with his awful family life. He suffered a lot and some of the time he felt like being abandoned. The only time he caught their interest was when they divorce with each of them fighting for custody hurting each other. Capote lived with his mother much in 1932, but this did not turn out as he had hoped. He went to New York City to live with her and his new stepfather, Joe Capote.

He discovered her mother to be very different. Lillie Mae— Nina—could sometimes be cruel or kind to him, and he never knew what to expect from her. She discovered some effeminate things linking to him. His stepfather was a more stable personality in the home, but Capote was not close to him or support at the time. Anyway he was adopted by his stepfather, and his name was changed to Truman Garcia Capote in 1935.

He was not a genius as student but Capote did well in the courses he was interested in and paid little attention in those that did not. He went to a private boys' school in Manhattan from 1933 to 1936, where he enchanted some of his classmates. Capote had a gift for telling stories and making people feel well. His mother wanted to make him more masculine, and thought that sending him to a military academy would be the answer. The 1936-1937 school year proved to be a disaster for Capote. The smallest in his class, he was often picked on by the other cadets.

Returning to Manhattan, Capote started to attract attention for his work at school. Some of his teachers noted his promise as a writer. In 1939, the Capotes moved to Greenwich, Connecticut, where Truman enrolled at Greenwich High School. He stood out among his classmates with his ebullient personality. Over time, Capote developed a group of friends who would often go over to his house to smoke, drink, and dance in his room. He and his group would also go out to nearby clubs. Seeking adventure as well as an escape, Capote and his good friend Phoebe Pierce would also go into New York City and scheme their way into some of the most popular nightspots, including the Stork Club and Café Society.

While living in Greenwich, his mother’s drinking began to escalate, which made Capote’s home life even more unstable. Capote did not do well in school and had repeat the 12th grade at the Franklin School after he and his family returned to Manhattan in 1942. Instead of studying, Capote spent his nights at the clubs, making friends with Oona O'Neill, the daughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.

First Published Writings

While still a teen, Capote got his first job working as a copyboy for The New Yorker magazine.During his time with the publication, Capote tried to get his stories published there with no success. He left The New Yorker to write full time, and started the novel Summer Crossing, which he shelved to work on a novella entitled Other Voices, Other Rooms. Capote’s first successes were not his novels, but several short stories. In 1945, editor George Davis selected Capote's story "Miriam" about a strange little girl for publication inMademoiselle. In addition to befriending Davis, Capote became close to his assistant Rita Smith, the sister of famous southern author Carson McCullers. She later introduced the two, and Capote and McCullers were friends for a time.

Capote's story in Mademoiselle attracted the attention of Harper's Bazaarfiction editor Mary Louise Aswell. The publication ran another dark and eerie story by Capote, "A Tree of Light" in its October 1945. These stories as well as "My Side of the Matter" and "Jug of Silver" helped launch Capote's career and gave him entrée into the New York literary world.

While struggling to work on his first novel, Capote received some assistance from Carson McCullers. She helped him get accepted at Yaddo, a famous artists' colony in New York State. Capote spent part of the summer of 1946 there, where he did some work on his novel and completed the short story, "The Headless Hawk," which was published by Mademoiselle that fall. Capote also fell in love with Newton Arvin, a college professor and literary scholar. The bookish academic and the effervescent charmer made quite an interesting pair. Arvin, as with most of the others at Yaddo, was completely taken by Capote’s wit, manner, and appearance. That same year, Capote won the prestigious O. Henry Award for his short story "Miriam."

Career Highlights

His first novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, was published in 1948 to mixed reviews. In the work, a young boy is sent to live with his father after the death of his mother. His father's home is a decrepit old plantation. For a time the boy does not get to see his father and instead must deal with his stepmother, her cousin, and some other unusual characters that inhabit this desolate place. While some criticized elements of the story, such as its homosexual theme, many reviewers noted Capote's talents as a writer. The book sold well, especially for a first-time author.

In addition to receiving accolades and publicity, Capote found love in 1948. He met author Jack Dunphy at a party in 1948, and the two began what was to be a 35-year relationship. During the early years of their relationship, Capote and Dunphy traveled extensively. They spent time in Europe and other places where they both worked on their own projects.

Capote followed the success of Other Voices, Other Rooms with a collection of short stories, A Tree of Light, published in 1949. Not one to stay out of the public eye for long, his travel essays were put out in book form in 1950 asLocal Color. His much-anticipated second novel, The Grass Harp, was released to in the fall of 1951. The fanciful tale explored an unlikely group of characters who take refuge from their troubles in a large tree. At the request of Broadway producer Saint Subber, Capote adapted his novel for the stage. The sets and costumes were designed by Capote's close friend, Cecil Beaton. The comedy opened in March 1952, closing after 36 performances.

In 1953, Capote landed some film work. He wrote some of Stazione Termini(later released as Indiscretion of an American Wife in the United States), which starred Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift. During the filming in Italy, Capote and Clift developed a friendship. After that project wrapped, Capote was soon working on the script for the John Huston-directed Beat the Devil, starring Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones and Gina Lollobrigida, during its production. His best screenplay, however, was done years later when he adapted the Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw into The Innocents(1961).

Undeterred by his past failure, Capote adapted his story about a Haitian bordello, "House of Flowers," for the stage at Subber’s urging. The musical debuted on Broadway in 1954 with Pearl Bailey as its star and had Alvin Ailey and Diahann Carroll in the cast as well. Despite the best efforts of Capote and the show's fine performers, the musical failed to attract enough critical and commercial attention. It closed after 165 performances. That same year, Capote suffered a great personal loss when his mother died.

Always fascinated by the rich and social elite, Capote found himself a popular figure in such circles. He counted Gloria Guinness, Babe and Bill Paley (the founder of CBS Television), Jackie Kennedy and her sister Lee Radziwell, C. Z. Guest, and many others among his friends. Once an outsider, Capote was invited for cruises on their yachts and for stays on their estates. He loved gossip—both hearing and sharing it. In the late 1950s, Capote began discussing a novel based on this jet-set world, calling it Answered Prayers.

In 1958, Capote scored another success with Breakfast at Tiffany's. He explored the life of a New York City party girl, Holly Golightly—who was a woman who depended on men to get by. With his usual style and panache, Capote had created a fascinating character within a well-crafted story. Three years later, the film version was released, starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly. Capote had wanted Marilyn Monroe in the lead role, and was disappointed with this adaptation.

In Cold Blood

Capote's next big project was another succes. He wanted with a friend namerd Harper Lee to write about the murder of four members of the Clutter family. The two went to Kansas to ask people viving there, friends and family of the deceased, and the people who work at the crime. Truman, very talented had some problems at the begining of this case but after a while helped by their mind and observation wrote down their notes at the end of the day and then compared with their discoveries. They used only papers and pencils.

Writing this non-fiction masterwork took a lot out of Capote. For years, he worked on it and still had to wait for the story to find its ending in the legal system. In Cold Blood became a huge hit, even critically and commercially. Capote used several techniques usually found in fiction to bring this true story to life for his readers. It was first serialized in The New Yorker in four issues. After it was published as a book, In Cold Blood became a best-seller.

 In Cold Blood brought him success and wealth, and because of this , Capote was never the same after the project. He suffered psychologically and physically. He likedc a lot to drink so , Capote began drinking more and started taking tranquilizers to limit his nerves. His substance abuse problems appeared over the coming Final Years

Published in 1980, his last major work, Music for Chameleons, was a collection of non-fiction and fictional pieces together with  Handcarved Coffins. The collection was well, but Capote was having bad problems being in decline because of the health.

At the end of his life , Capote had two bad failures that is why he stayed in Long Island hospital for an overdose. Then he went to California, and stayed with old friend Joanne Carson, the ex-wife of Johnny Carson. He died at her Los Angeles home on August 25, 1984.

Final Years

Despite his problems, Capote did, however, manage to pull off one of the biggest social events of the 20th century. Attracting his society friends, literary notables, and stars, his Black and White Ball garnered a huge amount of publicity. The event was held in the Grand Ballroom at the Plaza hotel on November 28, 1966 with publisher Katharine Graham as the guest of honor. In choosing a dress code, Capote decided that the men should dress in black tie attire while women could wear either a black or white dress. Everyone had to wear a mask. One of the evening's more memorable moments was when actress Lauren Bacall danced with director and choreographer Jerome Robbins.

Those society friends that flocked to the ball were in for a nasty shock several years later. Considered one of the notorious instances of biting the hand that feeds, Capote had a chapter from Answered Prayers published in Esquiremagazine in 1976. That chapter, "La Cote Basque, 1965," aired a lot of his society friends’ secrets as thinly veiled fiction. Many of his friends, hurt by his betrayal, turned their back on him. He claimed to be surprised by their reactions and was hurt by their rejection. By the late 1970s, Capote had moved on to the party scene at the famous club Studio 54 where he hung out with the likes of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, and Liza Minnelli.

By this time, Capote's relationship with Jack Dunphy was becoming strained. Dunphy wanted Capote to stop drinking and taking drugs, which—despite numerous trips to rehabilitation centers over the years—Capote seemed unable to do. While no longer physically intimate, the two remained close, spending time together at their neighboring homes in Sagaponack, Long Island. Capote also had other relationships with younger men, which did little to improve his emotional and psychological state.

Published in 1980, Capote's last major work, Music for Chameleons, was a collection of non-fiction and fictional pieces, including the novella Handcarved Coffins. The collection did well, but Capote was clearly in decline, battling his addictions and physical health problems.In the final year of his life, Capote had two bad falls, another failed stint in rehab, and a stay in a Long Island hospital for an overdose. Traveling to California, Capote went to stay with old friend Joanne Carson, the ex-wife of Johnny Carson. He died at her Los Angeles home on August 25, 1984.

Chapter 2

Novella is a short and well-structured narrative, realistic and satiric in tone, that influenced the development of the short story and the novel in Europe. Its origins are in Italy during the Middle Ages, as the novella was focused on local events that were comic, political, or amorous; the simple stories often were taken into collections together with anecdotes, legends, and romantic tales. There are Giovanni Boccaccio, Franco Sacchetti, and Matteo Bandello who later developed the novella in a psychologically subtle and well structured short tale, with a frame story to unify the tales around a common theme.

Geoffrey Chaucer brought the novella to England with The Canterbury Tales. During the Elizabethan period, William Shakespeare and other playwrights took dramatic plots from the Italian novella. The realistic content and form of these tales influenced the development of the English novel in the 18th century and the short story in the 19th century.

The novella had fame in Germany, where it is known as the Novelle, in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries in the works of writers such as Heinrich von Kleist, Gerhart Hauptmann, J.W. von Goethe, Thomas Mann, and Franz Kafka. As in Boccaccio’s Decameron, German Novellen are often taken within a frame story based on a catastrophic event being real or imaginary. The individual tales are told by several reporter-narrators to divert the audience from the bad luck they are experiencing. Featured by brevity, self-contained plots that end on a little note of irony, without much emotion, these tales were a major stimulant to the development of the modern short story in Germany. The Novelle also lived as a unique form, although unity of mood and style often replaced the traditional unity of action; the importance of the frame wanted objectivity.

Truman Capote's short novel Breakfast at Tiffany's describes a romantic and lovely, drama. Capote chooses characters that the reader can recall . Holly Golightly is beautiful and wise and she is balanced only by her extreme sadness. The book shows Capote's talent for writing comedy , and a story full with emotion.It was published in 1958, Breakfast at Tiffany's was a model for women togo and to search their luck in New York . Holly Golightly has taken her place as an American fictional icon. Capote’s favorite character was Holly .

Capote was both praised and disclaimed and Breakfast at Tiffany's was no exception.Some critics said that it was "an unbelievable melodrama" others considered to be "although it is not free of Capote's faults, seems to me the best thing he has done yet" . All of them could not denythe importance and integrity of the book and Holly is the best symbol for good and bad. For the most part, the book received honorable and praising reviews: "A rare individual voice, cool even when exasperated, never more sure of itself then when amazed, sounds through every sentence," said Paul Darcy Boles of the Saturday Review . Capote describes an interest for character, humor, and virtue. Most called him unrealistic, fanciful, and indifferent to moral issues but no matter what they say, it is undeniable that Capote remains, and will remain an influential writer long after his death.

Breakfast at Tiffany's tells the story of Holly Golightly. It is told by a never named narrator that once knew Holly when he lived above her in an old brownstone apartment building in New York City. In the time that they knew each other, they went from strange neighbors to the closest of confidants. The exposition of the story reveals that it has been fifteen years since the last time the narrator has seen Holly. In those fifteen years he says, "It never occurred to me to write about Holly Golightly, and probably it would not now except for a conversation I had with Joe Bell that set the whole memory of her in motion again" . Joe Bell is the proprietor of his own bar on Lexington Avenue, the narrator and Holly used to visit the bar as often as seven times a day, but not always for a drink: "during the war a private telephone was hard to come by," the narrator says . The beginning of the story is really the end. It is fifteen years after the events that the narrator describes have taken place. The narrator, now an accomplished writer, returns to Joe Bell's bar and his thoughts are flooded with the bittersweet memories of Holly Golightly.

The narrator is summoned by Joe Bell himself, who he has not heard from in several years. He and Joe never had a real relationship, their only link was Holly, who they both more than adored. So the narrator feels some urgency when he arrives at the bar, even hoping perhaps, that Holly might be there. But when he arrives, he sees only an excited Joe Bell, ready with information. Neither of the men have seen or heard from Holly since she left for Brazil, fifteen years ago. The narrator received only a postcard without a return address from her several months after she left New York. Joe Bell shows the narrator a series of photographs that he got from I.Y. Yunioshi, a Japanese photographer that lived in the studio apartment in the old brownstone above the narrator and Holly. The photos were from the jungles of Africa, the image was of a Negro villager holding a wooden sculpture of a woman. To the narrator's surprise it was a likeness of Holly Golightly.

Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling

Upon leaving Joe Bell's bar, the narrator is suddenly transfixed by his own recollections of Holly. He remembers his first impression of her, given before they even met. On her mailbox was a card that completely typifies her character: Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling. Capote first gave his character the name of Connie Gustafson, obviously inappropriate, he changed it to be more symbolic of her personality, she makes a holiday of life, but treads through it lightly. For Holly is a traveler, ever seeking a place that she can call home. Holly clearly represents the theme of novel, "…home is where you feel at home. I'm still looking," she says . This statement of Holly's resonates through out the book, almost everything she says and does illustrates her outlook on life, and her inability to accept it settled down. "I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well be dead".

Holly's background is murky and is something that she doesn't like to discuss, even after she and the narrator become friends. From the little revealed, Holly and her older brother Fred (a name incidentally she calls the narrator due to their physical resemblance) were forced to live with "different mean people" after both of their parents died of tuberculosis. The narrator learns about Holly's past from her abandoned husband, Doc Golightly. Holly and Fred ran away after their parents died and lived on only what they could find or steal. One day they approached the Golightly farm and were caught stealing turkey eggs by one of Doc's children. Holly's name then was Lulamae Barnes and she was only fourteen years old when she and Fred came to Doc's farm in bad physical condition: "Rib sticking out everywhere, legs so puny they can't hardly stand, teeth wobbling so bad they can't chew mush," Doc tells the narrator. Doc, whose first wife had died two years earlier took an extreme liking to the young Lulamae and asked her to marry him. With a true definition of her character Holly said "Course we'll be married. I've never been married before".

When the narrator first had the opportunity to view the woman he knew only by the name on her mailbox, he was astounded by the variety in her physical appearance:

I went out into the hall and leaned over the banister, just enough to see without being seen. She was still on the stairs, now she reached the landing, and the ragbag colors of her boy's hair, tawny streaks, strands of albino-blond and yellow, caught the hall light. It was a warm evening, nearly summer, and she wore a slim cool black dress, black sandals, a pearl choker. For all her chic thinness, she had an almost breakfast-cereal air of health, a soap and lemon cleanness, a rough pink darkening in the cheeks. Her mouth was large, her nose upturned. A pair of dark glasses blotted out her eyes. It was a face beyond childhood, yet this side of belonging to a woman. I thought her anywhere between sixteen and thirty; as it turned out, she was shy two months of her nineteenth birthday .

One day when Holly and the narrator go for a walk through Fifth Avenue on a beautiful Autumn day Holly seems interested in the narrator's childhood without really telling him about her own, even though talking about herself is something she does quite often. "…it was elusive, nameless, placeless, an impressionistic recital, though the impression received was contrary to what one expected, for she gave an almost voluptuous account of swimming in summer, Christmas trees, pretty cousins and parties: in short, happy in a way she was not, and never, certainly, the background of a child who had run away". Holly's character has such a dramatic flair that the reader nor the narrator never really know what to expect from her. On some occasions she will openly talk about outrageous taboos with perfect strangers and on others she will claw like a cat anyone who gets too close to her: "I asked her how and why she left home so young. She looked at me blankly, and rubbed her nose, as though it tickled: a gesture, seeing often repeated, I came to recognize as a signal that one was trespassing" . Holly is not only a physical paradox of a girl and a woman, but so is her personality, she has an odd mixture of child-like innocence and street smart sexuality. This is most apparent in Holly's chosen profession, the one dubbed "the world's oldest". Holly seems to always have a man banging on her door or passed out in her apartment asking more for their money or another "appointment". Holly's first real conversation with the narrator takes place some time after the midnight hour when she escapes from one of her drunken clients via the fire escape and knocks on the narrator's window. Much to his surprise, she is wearing only a robe and asks if she can stay in his apartment until the man in her's passes out or leaves. "…any gent with the slightest chic will give you fifty for the girl's john, and I always ask for cab fare too, that's another fifty," Holly says to the narrator nonchalantly . This is do to the fact that Holly doesn't permit herself to believe that she is a prostitute. Her idea of love keeps her from that: "I mean, you can't bang a guy and cash his checks and at least not try to believe you love him" . Holly labels all of the men that she has sleep with as "rats" but gives that rattiness a certain allure that makes it acceptable to her. She feels that she has to if she is going to continue to make a living out of it. And not only that, but she hopes to secure her financial future just as easily.

While she is in New York, Holly has an array of lovers, but the ones that she works the hardest for are ones that are rich. One of these men in particular, Rusty Trawler, shows Holly's stubborn determination to attract a rich husband and her love of money over love of integrity. The narrator describes Rutherford "Rusty" Trawler as "a middle-aged child that never shed its baby fat" . He inherited his father's fortune when he was five years old, making him a millionaire and a celebrity all at once. Holly treats him as a kind of pet, asking him to pour her friends drinks and other favors, which he does unquestionably. When the narrator asks Holly if she really loves him, she replies: "I told you: you can make yourself love anybody" . Rusty is really a homosexual, who treats himself to woman because he doesn't want to face that fact. The result is the diaper-wearing personality he portrays that the narrator christens "retarded".

Another character introduced about the same time is Mag Wildwood, a woman that in some ways, is similar to Holly. She envies rich men and loves a good party. She is tall and attractive, but has a nervous stutter that Capote uses to help the reader identify her as a perfect example of "frightful womanhood" . Her boyfriend at the time is a handsome Brazilian named Jose Ybarra-Jaegar, a man that the narrator likes much better than the always dependent Rusty Trawler. After the two couples take a trip to Key West, Rusty and Mag end up in the hospital, leaving time for Holly and Jose to get acquainted. The loss of Jose doesn't jostle Mag for very long. She gets what she really wanted, a new husband, Mr. Rutherford Trawler. It is Holly's planned long term relationship with Jose that will bring the events of the novel to its climax.

Tiffany & Co.

Tiffany's, the jewelry store for which the novel is named, plays an important part in the life of Holly Golightly. It is the only thing that can cure her of the "mean reds", a state of anxiety that is worse than just fear. The narrator first likens Holly's nicknamed depression with the blues, but Holly assures him that they are not the same thing. "No, the blues are because you're getting fat or maybe it's been raining too long. You're sad, that's all. But the mean reds are horrible. You're afraid and you sweat like hell, but you don't know what you're afraid of. Except something bad is going to happen, only you don't know what it is" . The narrator, always insightful, calls it angst and says that everyone feels that ways sometimes. By whatever name he wants to call it, Holly asks the narrator what he uses as a cure. He says that a drink usually helps him, but Holly spurns the use of drugs (marijuana is Rusty's suggestion) including aspirin to cure her of the mean reds. "What I've found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's," Holly says. Her sweet innocence and search for a home are revealed in this early scene which shows Holly's naivete about the world. "It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets" .

Holly's goal in life is to find a real place like Tiffany's, a place where she can belong. Holly mentions that she dreams of settling down, perhaps in Mexico, with her older brother, Fred. But again, when she feels like she is revealing too much about her past she pushes up her dark glasses and changes the subject. Her brother Fred is very important to her, one of the only people she truly cares for. Yet, when she talks about him it is like the rest of her past, whitewashed and unclear. She only mentions that he is a soldier, fighting overseas in the war. On the first night that Holly came to visit the narrator in his apartment she ends up sleeping beside him, showing that Holly needs someone who is comforting instead of lusting toward her. Holly fast falls asleep, but the narrator lies awake, watching her. When the sun begins to rise Holly grips the narrator's arm: "Poor Fred," she said in her sleep. "Where are you, Fred? Because it's cold. There's snow in the wind" . When the narrator wakes her because she has tears streaming down her face, she runs out of his apartment, again throwing up a brick wall. "Oh, for God's sake," she says having realized that she let some of her feelings come out. She yells at the narrator before leaving though the fire escape, "I hate snoops."

Never Love A Wild Thing

Holly's philosophy on life comes forth in a gripping scene when her estranged husband, Doc Golightly, travels all of way from Tulip, Texas to find his runaway wife. Doc is an older man in his fifties, a man that is obviously different compared to Holly's usual jet-set callers, the narrator thinks of him as "provocative". He is not the New York type, far from it, he displays the physical characteristics of a farmer, and his accent easily identifies him as a Southerner. The man watches Holly's apartment, feels the name on her mailbox, but he never knocks on her door. The narrator gets sinister suspicions from the man because of his strange behavior until he hears him whistle a melody that immediately connects him to Holly's mysterious past. It is a tune that she often played on the guitar in her window, sometimes long into the night: Don't wanna sleep, don't wanna die, just wanna go a-travelin' through the pastures of the sky. The ironic touch here is that Doc taught her the song that would so much become a part of her being and lead to her abandoning him and his family. Doc begins to follow the narrator around until they both arrive at Hamburger Heaven, where Doc takes a seat next to the narrator. The narrator finally asks the mysterious man why he has been following him, "Son, I need a friend," Doc tells him. He reveals to the narrator that he was Holly's husband and then the story of how she and Fred had come to live on the Golightly farm. "She plain broke our hearts when she ran off like she done," Doc begins. He recounts how Lulamae (Doc refuses to call her Holly) had everything she should have ever wanted: housework done by the other children, her own garden and animals, all the food she could ever eat, all prepared just for her. "'Twas her home," Doc firmly states, "Don't tell me that woman wasn't happy!" But as the narrator already knows, Holly doesn't have a home, she is always Traveling. Doc claims that all Holly had to do was comb her hair and read magazines. "Ask me, that's what done it. Looking at show-off pictures. Reading dreams. That's what started her walking down the road," Doc says. Little Lulamae Barnes walked a little father everyday, until one day, she never came back.

Capote uses some of his best dramatic irony in the novel with the characterization of Doc Golightly. Up until the last minute when he is ready to board a bus bound for Tulip, he truly believes that he has convinced Lulamae to come home with him. But as the reader and the narrator both know, she can't, it would be a total contradiction to everything she believes in. Doc reluctantly is forced to go home with only some new memories of the woman that he loved so much. "Never love a wild, Mr. Bell," Holly says in Joe's bar after she once again leaves Doc.

That was Doc's mistake. He was always lugging home wild things. A hawk with a hurt wing. One time it was a full grown bobcat with a broken leg. But you can't give your heart to a wild thing: the more you do, the stronger they get. Until they're strong enough to run into the woods. Or fly into a tree. Then the sky. That's how you'll end up, Mr. Bell. If you end let yourself love a wild thing. You'll just end up looking at the sky .

Joe Bell responds with the cynical remark: "She's drunk," but we know that what Holly says is true. Capote makes it evident for us even before Holly utters those words, for in the beginning of the novel the narrator makes Joe Bell realize his feelings for Holly, even years after she has been gone. Joe Bell remained a bachelor throughout his life, never trying to love a wild thing like he loved Holly. Holly's advise unfortunately goes unheeded to almost everyone she meets, Joe Bell, the narrator, Doc, I.Y. Yunioshi, they were all infatuated with her. The narrator's crisp account of events that happened over fifteen years ago are evidence of that. He grew to love Holly, and yet they were never lovers. When the narrator first thinks that Holly had actually married Rusty Trawler (instead in was her friend Mag Wildwood) his feelings for her come to the surface: "…was my outrage a little the result of being in love with Holly myself? A little. For I was in love with her. Just as I'd once been in love with my mother's elderly colored cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named McKendrick. That category of love generates jealousy, too".

Holly's distaste for the captivity of wild things reverberates through the entire novel, binding it, tying the history of her life into a kind of loop. When Doc had taken Lulamae to be his wife he tamed a wild crow for her. Capote again shows his skill at dramatic and sorrowful irony when after Lulamae runs away, the crow also goes free. "All summer you could hear him," Doc says. "In the garden. In the woods. All summer that damned bird was calling: Lulamae, Lulamae". On the sunny afternoons that the narrator and Holly would spend together, they would walk all around New York (a place Holly says she loves even though it isn't hers), always make sure to avoid the zoo. For Christmas, Holly bought the narrator an expensive but beautiful birdcage that he had once told her he admired when they were window shopping one day. "Promise me, though," Holly says to him, "Promise me you'll never put a living thing in it".

Doc wasn't the only person that Holly had left because she herself is a wild thing. And neither are the narrator and Joe Bell. Another character from Holly's past that makes a notable appearance is one Mr. O.J. Berman. He was a Hollywood agent who saw in Holly the makings of a movie star. He had her take French lessons in hopes that it would help her speak English, because as he tells the narrator, "…even when she opens her mouth and you don't know if she's a hillbilly or an Okie or what" . But on the day of her big screen test, O.J. gets a phone call from Holly, she was in New York when she was supposed to be in California. Holly's explanation? "I've never been to New York" . Holly says that she could never accept the life of a movie star because it would be essential that she give up her ego. "I don't mean I'd mind being rich and famous. That's very much on my schedule, and someday I'll try to get around to it; but if it happens, I'd like to have my ego tagging along. I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's". This early scene from the novel shows how Capote beautifully ties together the title with his heroine's philosophy of life and thus the theme of the story.

Bon Voyage Oompahpah

The end of Holly's story is developed in a remembrance of her last day in New York. She had been planning for months to go with Jose to Brazil, in hopes of becoming his wife. The two had been living together for quite some time when Jose finally plans to go back to Brazil in hopes of a future political career. Holly is changed by Jose in the time they spend together. She calls him her first "non-rat romance" and is six weeks pregnant by the time chance intervenes and destroys Holly's hopes for an ideal Tiffany-like life with Jose. It involved her relationship with Sally Tomato, a Mafia fuhrer who is locked away in Sing Sing for tax evasion. His "lawyer", Mr. O'Shaughnessy, had been paying Holly a hundred dollars an hour if she would visit Sally at the prison once a week just to chat and give the "weather report" to Mr. O'Shaughnessy from Sally. In reality, it was a clever scheme that allowed Sally to operate his narcotics operations from behind bars, using Holly as his courier. Even though Holly had no idea of what she was actually doing, she was arrested nonetheless and in a scuffle with the police, she lost her baby. Unfortunately, that is not all that Holly lost that day. While she is recovering in the hospital, the narrator goes to Holly's apartment and discovers Jose's cousin packing his things. The man leaves with Jose's possessions giving the narrator only a letter, from Jose to Holly. Holly is public displayed on the front page of every newspaper: "PLAYGIRL ARRESTED IN NARCOTICS SCANDAL" was just one of the headlines. This was too much for Jose, whose entire life was strictly more dedicated to his public career than to a wife and a family. He fled for Brazil saying in his letter to Holly: "But conceive of my despair upon discovering in such a brutal and public style how very different you are from the manner of woman a man of my faith and career could hope to make his wife" . Holly puts up a barrier, fortifying her emotions after she reads the letter, and then to the narrator's surprise, says that she is going to Brazil regardless. "It's the only way," she says, "why should I waste a perfectly fine plane ticket? Already paid for? Besides, I've never been to Brazil" .

O.J. Berman provides the bond money for Holly's bail and she is quick to ask the narrator to bring her things, along with a list of the fifty richest men in Brazil, to Joe Bell's bar so she can leave immediately for the airport. "…once I walked from New Orleans to Nancy's Landing, Mississippi, just under five hundred miles," the narrator says on Holly's last day in New York, "It was a light-hearted lark compared to the journey to Joe Bell's bar" . Joe Bell refused to drink to Holly's departure and as she got up to leave he threw one of his flower arrangements to her, but they instead scattered on the floor. "Good-bye" was all he said and then locked himself in the bathroom. The narrator accompanied Holly on her ride to the airport, where Capote's novel reaches its climax. Halfway there, Holly tells the driver to stop along a street in Spanish Harlem. She gets out of the car, cradling her unnamed cat in her arms. "It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name," Holly told the narrator when they first met, "But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I" . She drops the cat onto the street saying "This ought to be the right kind of place for a tough guy like you. Garbage cans. Rats galore. Plenty of cat-bums to gang around with. So scram. I said beat it!" . She then jumped back in the car and told the driver to go. The narrator is shocked at Holly's treatment of her cat, an obvious reaction to Jose's treatment of her. But at the next stop, Holly flings open the door and runs back for the cat, except he is nowhere to be found. "Oh, Jesus God," she says, "We did belong to each other" .

The narrator makes Holly a promise that he will come back and find her cat and take care of him. Holly accepts and then gets back into the car on her way to the airport. We get a sense that Holly has come to some kind of greater realization of what she wants when she says, "I'm very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away" . If Holly ever did find a home, the narrator never learns. But when he finds her cat one day, in a cozy apartment window, he is sure that it has a name and if it can find a home perhaps Holly can as well. Capote's writing gives the reader a romantic fever of remembrance, of things that are gone and a future that is unknown. The story of Holly Golightly is in a way a part of Capote's life and perhaps a part of us all. The part that is constantly wondering, roaming, searching for a place to belong. Holly is the epitome of wild things, for what place does a wild thing belong but in the wild? It puts forth the question but not the answer of where a wild thing belongs when there is no wilderness left. But the cat, a wonderer who found a home, gives us some hope, that a wild thing can find a place to belong, and not be caged. It is a motif that Capote exposes with a charming tale and a truly unforgettable character.

Chapter 3

The Critical Evolution of Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s

In 1958 Truman Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s was published, showing up the beginning of a dramatic stage for Capote’s writing style. At first it was taken as a Southern gothic writer writing primarily in grotesques, the light, city-bound world of Holly Golightly describes that Capote was able of a larger range. In 1961 Breakfast at Tiffany’s was transform into the movie having the identic name starring Audrey Hepburn in one of her important roles. After the film was made has put up to criticism the fact that the book has miuch in comon with the book. This book showed up Capote’s optimistic style.

Paul Levine’s “Truman Capote: The Revelation of the Broken Image” was published in the same year as Breakfast at Tiffany’s and had a big impact on the criticism of the novella that followed. Levine tells in his essay that the “inclusion of Truman Capote in any discussion that pretends to be … at least literary is usually frowned upon” by critics . Hinting to alter the then-popular critical view of Capote as a minor literary figure, Levine analysis the dichotomies that exist within Capote’s works using the thematic labels “daylight” and “nighttime” The daylight and nighttime metaphor that Levine discusses was in critical use for years to come, with Breakfast at Tiffany’s .The features of a daylight story, Levine writes, are that it is “realistic, colloquial, [and] often humorous,” while a nighttime story is more “dreamlike, detached, and inverted” .It is very important to discover that in daylight stories the “movement is out towards the world,” while in nighttime stories there is a turning inward.

Later , Ihab Hassan’s “Birth of a Heroine” applies Levine’s daylight/nighttime metaphor to a speech of Capote’s published works. Hassan’s point is on Breakfast at Tiffany’s with an emphasis on Holly Golightly, the heroine, as the character that literary critics have been searching to discover a new woman hero.Holly shows “no revulsion against her identity,” and is “very much close to this world, and to… herself” . She possesses a “loyalty to her own feelings for which she is willing to risk all” which allows her to “implicate herself in a wider range of experience than her predecessors encompass” . While Holly’s story is “lovingly told,” Hassan also describes the “gentle criticism” inherent in the narrative . Holly’s breakdownand failure at the end of the novella, shows her humanity and lets the reader to see the cost of living by one’s own rules: that people cannot know when they will find the “grace of knowledge and repose” This search for a real home is a driving theme throughout Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hassan claims that the novella reaches perfection and that Capote is able to treat his topic with “marvelous selectivity” Without technical innovation, all parts put together as they come to lifeand enter the inside and outside Holly’s world. Holly is sincere, pureand experienced , features which tranform her into an american hero, having in mind the freedomof experience because this kind of feelig was no more wanted. She was different from what society accepted.

After the publication of “Birth of a Heroine,” Ihab Hassan’s “Truman Capote: The Vanishing Image of Narcissus” appeared in Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature. Based on the daylight/nocturnal dyad he dealt with previously, the theme of “Narcissus” is mixed into the discussion and Hassan’s critical views are refined. The idea of Narcissus appears in to play, Hassan writes, when one understands that the daylight and nocturnal styles are both “developments of a central, unifying, and self-regarding impulse … traditionally embodied” by Narcissus .

Chapter 4

Summary of the book

Section 1

The narrator tells about his first apartment in New York, a single room in a brownstone in the East Seventies . it was dark and "crowded with attic furniture", he remembers the apartment fondly, as it was his own space, having inside everything he needed to "become the kind of writer he wanted to be".

It is revealed that his memory was trembled by a phone call the previous Tuesday from Joe Bell, the owner of a bar located around the corner from the old brownstone. While the two men haven't seen each other in years, the narrator describes that Joe has information about Holly Golightly, a woman who lived in the apartment beneath his and with whom he frequented Joe's bar. The narrator takes a taxi to the bar, where he finds Joe alone on the premises.

After preparing him a "White Angel" (half vodka, half gin), Joe asks the narrator if he remembers a Japanese man named I.Y. Yunioshi. The narrator tells that he was a magazine photographer who occupied the studio apartment on the top floor of the old brownstone and who, had spent the last two years in Africa. welcomed with his answer, Joe gives the narrator an envelope with three photographs, all of an African man dresses up traditionally , displaying an elaborate wood carving of a young woman's head, with short hair, big eyes, and a wide, full mouth. The narrator discovers the sculpture as an exact image of Holly Golightly.

Joe tells the story of the wood carving to the narrator as Yunioshi told it to him the previous night. Travelling through Tococul, a village in East Anglia on Christmas day, Yunioshi was impressed by a local man squatting in a doorway, carving monkeys on a walking stick. When asked to see more of his work, the African produced the sculpture of the head. Yunioshi, struck by the resemblance to his former neighbor, offered to buy the carving, but found the artist strangely reluctant to part with his work. Yunioshi convinced the African to tell him the story of the carving.

The African revealed that the carving is a symbol of a young white woman who, together with two white men, had rode in Tococul suddenly in the Spring of that year. The men were ill , having fever and were obliged to stay in the village for many weeks in a solitary hut while they recovered, while the woman felt an affection for the carver and slept with him on his carpet. Then, as she had arrived, the woman disappeared, riding off on her horse through the African brush.

Joe and the narrator wonder about Holly's current whereabouts. The narrator suppose that the story is false, and that Holly is likely still in New York, either dead, or "married and quieted down." Joe disagrees, reasoning that he's been there walking for the past ten to twelve years, and, given his fixation on Holly, he would have seen her if she were around.

Joe having revealed his affection for Holly.The narratorcomes back to the photos to Joe and rises to leave, but Joe took his wrist. He tells that while he loved Holly, his feelings were not sexual: "[It] wasn't that I wanted to touch her."He insists that his love for Holly was the one for "a stranger, a stranger who's a friend."

The narrator leaves the bar to discover that it has stopped raining. He walks nearby the neighborhood to the brownstone he used to live in, which, he discovers, has been renovated with a new door and elegant shutters. Then the narrator realizes that only one of his former neighbors, Madame Sapphia Spanella, is a tenant, and recalls that he first became aware of Holly Golightly because of her mailbox.

Analysis

The novella's opening section puts Holly at a conspicuous distance from the narrative action. The reader finds out Holly's story after the fact, approximately ten years after he last saw her. The technique is called a "frame narrative": a story that hides, or "frames" the central story, which then appears as a "story within a story". While the story of the narrator's seeing with Joe Bell is an explicit frame for Holly' story, we notice this tale is also told to the narrator himself through a series of narratives: the African carver tells his story to Yunioshi, who tells it to Joe Bell, who confesses it to the narrator, who finally gives it along to the reader.

Capote calls our spirit of observation to Holly's essentially mysterious and secretly nature. Through the novella, Holly isdescribed as an unknowable person, and refuses to tell the details of her life to her friends. The use of a frame narrative amplifies Holly's mystery, tranforming her into a literal gossip that cannot be checkedverified . The interest of the narrator, Joe Bell, Yunioshi and the African in Holly's fateshows the power of her charisma. The African refuses to blast with his carving, Yunioshi wants to pat much money for it, and the narrator travels across the city , despite it was raining at the happy suggestion of news of Holly.

Section 2

The narrator tells us that living for a week in the brownstone he noticed an unusualcard on one of his mailboxes. Later , on a night he wakes up hearing that Yunioshi was fighting up with a young woman who wanted to enter the building and she rand his doorbell. She did that because she lost her key. They both conceliate when she promises that she will let him take the pictures he mentioned. The narrator finally meets Holly. They fight because she has called him Harry when his name was Sid Arbuckand complained for picking up the check fr her. Holly tells Sid that next time when a girl asks for „powder-room change”, he should give more money to the woman. After a while every time Holly losts her key, she starts to ring the narrator’s and not Yunioshi’s bell. Holly and the narrator didn’t speak, though he sees her around men at a restaurant a nd then dancing near a group of army officers. The narrator spends the summer inspecting Holly’s trash and finds out different things about her. She was a smoker and she loved reading astrological charts. Meantime he watches her through the windows and sees that she has a cat, she plays the guitar. During a ninght , in Septamber, drinking bourbon, he feels he is watched and then he observes that Holly was the one who did that. He invites her in the apartament and there Holly tells him that he was alike her brother Fred so she decided to call him Fred.the narrator tells her that he was a writer and Holly agrees to help him with publishing.

They had a drink, and Holly read a story written by him. She feels bored while he was reading and when she verifies the clock she discovers the hour was 4:30 and decides to leave because she was going to visit Sing Sing prison, where her friend Sally Tomato , a gangster, was. Sally was not her lover but her friend and her mission was to pretend being Sally’s niece. Actually she was an intermediater between Sally and his lawyer. The narrator becomes concearned because of this arrangement and goes to bed together till she starts to cry.

Analysis

This section tells us about the narrator’s relationsgip wiht Holly. It comes up some Holly’s feature as ambiguous identity, her sexual plitics. The narrator fascinated by Holly gathers details about her by watching and investigate . The narrator is a person who becomes a writer learning by observationrather than by experiement. He remains namely and objesctive. This book is a third person realist fiction. Who is Holly? Holly Golightly means a ‚’’holiday”, a time for rest and ‚’’lightly” which shows her tendency to change locations, identities and lifestyles without hesitation. It can also be a symbol for travelling. Holly sings in her balcony ‚’’Don’t wanna sleep, Don’t wanna die, Don’t wanna go a –travelin’ . Travellingin that song is an alternative for death. Observing her loo, we can say that Holly has a unique multicolored hair, she has a fit body. Their conversation reveals that Holly earns her living through unconventional means: paid by men she offers her time, affections, body for money. She is art as a commodity. The narrator’s association with Fred becomes key to his dynamic with Holly.

Section 3 & 4

Summary

The next Friday, the narrator finds an apology note from Holly Golightly on his doorstep, telling that she won't bother him again. The next Thursday, Holly leaves an invitation by inviting him to her apartment for a drink that night in his mailbox.

After the narrator arrives at Holly's apartment, , he is greeted by O.J. Berman, a Hollywood agent. Holly is having a shower and Berman explains to the narrator that Holly is a "phony", and tells him the story of how he met her. Before Holly joins them in the living room, Berman tells the narrator that Holly is planning to marry a man named Rusty Trawler.

In a few minutes Holly's apartment fills up with strange men, many of them much older than her. The narrator understands that the guests do not know each other, and that Holly has "distributed her invitations while zig-zagging through various bars." He notices Rusty Trawler, to whom Holly pays particular attention. Into a book titled The Baseball Guide, the narrator finds some newspaper clippings about Rustyappearing asa an orphan millionaire.. then he discovers some artcles about divorce and marriage and about a relationship with Holly.

Holly explains tot the narrator her selection of the books. She reveals that it's part of her "research": "If a man doesn't like baseball, then he must like horses, and if he doesn't like either of them, well, I'm in trouble…he don't like girls." She tells the narrator about why she decided against being an actress: actresses need to abandon their egos. She talks about her cat,and describes how she enjoys visiting Tiffany's .

Rusty offers the narrator a drink. She tells the narrator that she told Rusty to realize his homosexuality.

Holly tells the narrator to speak with O.J. Berman, who could help him with career. She is interrupted by Mag Wildwood. Mag came uninvited after working with Yunioshi. Mag flirts with Berman, and while he escorts her to the restroom, Holly tells to the guests that Mag has venereal disease.

When Mag returns, she is upset to find the guests suddenly cold and hostile. Holly has a fight with mag and aftefr a while Mag sleeps on the floor being hurt.on Friday afternoon the narrator comes in Holly’s apartament and does not understand why Holly is now friend with Mag. Over the weekend, an attractive man moves to Holly, looking for Mag.

Mag has a relationship with the Latin man, whose name is Jose Yberra-Jaegar. Mag tells Holly that she is lucky that Rusty is American, and their conversation turns to the topic of national pride. Holly tells Mag that she wants to leave after the war is finished.

Holly discusses her brother Fred, a soldier, and calls him stupid. Mag describes her fear over moving to Brazil once she and Jose marry. She wants to stay in America.

Holly asks Mag for more details about Jose's sexual habits, but Mag claims she doesn't remember. She says that's the "normal attitude . The two women bicker, both saying that Holly would be better off in Brazil than Mag.

Analysis

The narrator’s conversation with Berman shows the interest for Holly.for her nothing is more natural than having several roles. Holly has a chameleon nature. At Holly’s party the sexuality is put under scrutiny. At the beginningof the book the narrator’s sexual orientation is not distinguished, he is pretending to be a homosexual. Observing the book we could say that he wanted to observe Holly’s friends. We cannot describe Rusty as either gay or straight and this shows up the novella’s treatment of human sexuality being a strange phenomenon. Then in the third section we discover three symbols: Tiffany’s , the ’’meand reds’’and Holly’s cat. She did not give a name to the cat because she considers that they do not belong one to the other. She is an independent person. The fourth section of the book consists of only narrator’s observation of Holly and Mag. By the dialogue between the two women is established a relationship. Though they are very different :Mag prefers to put off the light during an intime moment in contrast to Holly. Olly prefers to be natural instead of normal. The narrator is rather an observer than takes part ito the action.

Sections 5 & 6

Summary

On Monday , the narrator gets a letter , informing him about an agreement of the editors to publish his story for free . he is very happy , so he decided to share this hapinness with Holly. Holly invites the narrator to lunch to celebrate and while he is expecting her to come , he discovers the same unreal furniture.

Holly tells the narrator about her decision to take Mag on as a roommate. While Mag isn't a lesbian, Holly explains, she can be a "perfect fool". Mag's modeling career means that she is out of the apartment much time. Mag is engaged, which means that she and Holly will not be in direct competition for men. Holly tells that Joe is a good man.

Holly treats the narrator to Manhattans at Joe Bell's bar.Finding out the good news of the narrator's story, Joe Bell offers them both champagne cocktails on the house. Holly and the narrator spend the rest of the day watching a parade on Fifth Avenue, having lunch and relaxing in the park. They speak then about their childhood. The narrator thinks that Holly’s story is not true.

The narrator asks Holly if she had ran from home , she admits that it is true; Holly remembers that she wants to send her brother something. They serach for peanut butter and then they go toghether to the antique shop .she decides to steal something and while the saleswoman is busy they slip a mask on ytheir faces and leave the shop. Spotting a Woolworth's, Holly isconvincing him to steal something. Being merry , the two wear their stolen masks all the way home.

Analysis

The narrator and Holly are ready to celebrate his first publication. He finds out about Holly and Mag’s friendship. Mag, Holly’s roomate is a perfect fool and she takes advantage of Mag , this thing being considered by the narrator amoral. The next section describes Holly and the narrator spending the day in Nwe York , and here is explored one of the themes of the book: deception. They speak about their childhood and the narrator discovers that she was lying when she tells atories about swimming, Christmas trees and nie cousins. She recognizes the lie without being embarrassed. She is a ’’true phony”, a personwho tries to hide the truth. The narrator does not write about his childhood . we are also given details about her brother Fred whom she wants to move to Mexico. She lies only to be vulnerable. The fact that Holly steals the masks from the story is a reason to have fun. She chooses the maskwhich describes the deception and artifice, presenting Holly as an actor , playing a role, not areal life. The narrator feels himself a different person wearing the mask. In section 6 Hlly hates the cages. He cannot stand to be imprisoned, she likes to be free, independent and she is convinced that she does not belong to anyone or anything.

Section 7

Summary

The narrator finds a full-time job, and spends little time with Holly. They drink only from time to time the coffe in the morning because Holly travels  Rusty Trawler and often with Rusty, Mag and Jose.

One afternoon while waiting for a bus, the narrator notices Holly going inside a public library. Confused , the narrator follows her in and observes Holly secretly from a nearby reading table. As he stared her, the narrator remembers of a classmate he had in school, Mildred Grossman. The narrator considers them "Siamese twins"because of their personalities , Mildred and Holly "had been given their character too soon", and, as a result, would never change. Both Mildred and Holly were distinct types of people: Mildred the realist, and Holly the romantic. Holly leaves and the narrator discovers that Holly took notes about Brazil.

On Christmas Eve, the narrator goes to a party given by Holly and Mag. He helps them with decoration. Holly tells the narrator that there is a present for him in the bedroom; on her bed, he finds the birdcage he had admired, decorated with a red ribbon. He is amazed by the sum of money she has spent on it – three hundred and fifty dollars . Holly makes him promise that he'll "never put a living thing" in the cage, and he is agree. The narrator gives Holly her present, a St. Christopher's medal from Tiffany's.

The narrator, tells the reader that he still owns the birdcage, and has traveled with it across the U.S., North Africa, Europe, and the Caribbean but Holly forgot about the medal.

After the Christmas party, Holly, Rusty, Mag, and Jose take a winter trip to Key West. After she comes back Holly tells to the narrator that, soon after the group arrived, Rusty a problem with some sailors and was seriously hurt, while Mag had to be hospitalized for first-degree sunburn. Jose and Holly had left Rusty and Mag in the hospital and went alone to Havana. When Jose and Holly returned to Key West, Mag and Rusty accused the pair of having slept together while in Havana, which caused particular tension between Holly and Mag.

Holly tells the narrator that she knows that Mag hadn't slept with Jose. Mag had believed her, and, to avoid sharing the same bed as a lesbian, was now sleeping on an army cot into the living room of Holly's apartment. The narrator gives Holly a backrub while she tells him that she passed along his short story. She says that while Berman had been impressed with his writing, he thought the narrator was on the wrong track. "Negroes and children: who cares?"

The narrator dismisses Berman's criticism. She claims that Wuthering Heights was more profound. As the narrator and Holly have a verbal fight , he realizes that she was talking about the movie version of Bronte's novel. Aware of his condescending attitude, Holly wants he should offer proof. The narrator told her that he cannot be comparable with her or Berman.

The narrator apologizes, but Holly continues to make him feel bad . Finally, he tells her the degrading way in which she earns her money, claiming that "Rusty Trawler is too hard a way of earning it." Holly asks the narrator to leave.

Analysis

This section amplifies the narrator’s description being an outsider before. He follows Holly in the library and because he has a full –time job, he becomes an observer. That’s why the narrator discovers more about Holly’s deception. He finds out in the library that Holly was interested in travelling to Brazilwhere Mag would move after marrying the Brazilian Jose, a politician. The visit to library shows that she wants to change herself again. The fact that the narrator sees Holly here reminds him about his clasmate, named Mildred Grossman and understands yhat Holly and Mildred were opposite personalities: one being romantic and the other being realistic. He discovers that people generally can be changed but Holly and Mildred cannot be . Maybe Holly’s nature is that of a ”real phony”. She is instable. Holly and Jose travel to Cuba and leave Mag and Rusty in the hospital. When Holly returns , she tells Mag she was a lesbian, lying for her fun and to respond with a negation to Mag’s accusations. She does not feel un comfortable because of the fact that she betrays Mag. The narrator is advised by Holly and Berman to renounce at hs descriptive prose for a style to earn money. The narrator feels superior to Holly and Berman and thinks that this kind of change could be bad for his integrity of the art. Art can be defined in two ideas: Holly –Berman-art as commodity and the narrator- art as a crtique for society . his prose explores the realistic social and psychological subjects. He is dissapointed because Holly’s life style. She abandoned art for money.

Sections 8 & 9

Summary

After having a verbal fight with Holly, the narrator puts the birdcage in front of her apartment door. The next day he sees it on the pavement and returns with it to his apartament. He still has fight against Holly, not speaking to her when they pass one by the other or at Joe Bell's. When Sapphia Spanella,wants to put Holly in a bad image , writes a document which the narrator refuses to sign so her plan fails. Later, the narrator sees a strange man looking at Holly's mailbox. He is around 50 years old. The narrator sees the man during the day, and realizes that he is watching him. Once, staying near that man the narrator asks him what he wants, and the man tells him he is looking for a friend. The man shows the narrator a photo of himself and several children around. One of the children is Holly, and that another is Fred. The man tells the narrator that he is a horse doctor from Texas named Doc Golightly, and that Holly's real name is Lulamae Barnes. He married Holly when she was thirteen. Doc was informed of his wife’s life by Fred, and wants to convince Holly to return to him and for the children he is raising from his first marriage.

Doc explains that he met Holly and Fred when they want to steal milk and turkey eggs from his farm. They had run away from the family they had been placed with when their parents died of tuberculosis. Doc felt sorryfor the children and raised them as his own.Charmed by Holly's intelligence and brave , he proposed to her. While she was well fed and did little housework, preferring to "comb her hair and send away for all the magazines," Holly was restless and eventually ran away.

Doc asks for a favour- the narrator to let Holly know that he is here, and the narrator is agree. The two men return and Doc waits near the stairs while the narrator knocks on Holly's door. Holly assumes that he has come to make up after their fight, and asks him to return the next day, but when he calls her "Lulamae", she realizes that is was not a joke. He found her real identity. Thinking that her brother is visiting, she calls down the hall for Fred. When she sees Doc, they laugh and embrace happily while Madame Spanella looks on with disapproval.

The next morning, Holly and the narrator discuss at Joe Bell's bar. She tells that she cannot divorce Doc because she was only fourteen when she married, so the marriage wasn't legal. She tells that because she never intended to return to Texas with Doc, she slept with him the night before, since he gave her confidence as a child. She felt that she was the same girls who steals turkey and eggs when the said goodbye .

Holly tells Joe ’’Never love a wild thing,". She explains that Doc loved wild animals, and that the more love he gave them, the stronger they became. She understands that her husband must be back in Texas already,so Holly invites the narrator to join her in a toast to Doc.

Analysis

The narrator feels close to Holly in section 8 because he discovers many things about her past. He wants to be angry with her but he cannot do that. When the narrator meets Doc and the truth about Holly , she becomes vulnerable to him. He learns about her poor and hard life , he discovers her real name- Lulamae Barnes. Finding out the truth the narrator feels very close to Holly. Lulamae is Capote’s mother’s name. Capote’s mother changed her name- Nina-. The name Lulamae indicates the spring and Holly-the name she chose refers to a winter plant. She built a new identity, an opposite one, considering her birth level. She is affceted by Doc’s visit and tells the narrator about her past. She feels grateful to Doc because he protected her so she sleeps with him asa a reward for his protection in the past. Doc hoped Holly will return home but she does not do this. Drunk , Holly does a full of sincerity monologue in Joe’s bar. She tells about Doc’s pleasure to protect wild animals, even if they leave him after they become healthy again. Holly warns Joe not to love a wild thing because one day will leave. That wild animal can be Holly, who left Doc after he protected her. She ran away from those who loved her. She recognizes that she is the same like an animal : not being responsable for her behaviour.

Sections 10 & 11

Summary

Returning from a job interview, the narrator discovers a passenger reading a newspaper with the headline "Trawler Marries Fourth". He assumes that Trawler's bride is Holly, and is surprised. He explains that he hasn't seen Holly since the Sunday following Doc's visit and he is upset because he lost his job.

Thinking about Holly and Rusty, the narrator feels disappointed. He realizes that he loves Holly. His love for her is no less potent for being unromantic or asexual.

The narrator buys a newspaper and discovers to his relief that Rusty has not married Holly, but Mag Wildwood. When he returns he finds Sapphia Spanella  . the narrator hears some strange noise in Holly’s apartament. He is soon joined by Jose, who brings a doctor. Jose opens the door with his own key. Inside, the three men and Holly in the bed. The doctor injects Holly because she needs to be calm. She found thet her brother was killed.

While the doctor attends to Holly, the narrator and Jose discuss her outburst. Doc Golightly

The narrator relates that Holly never mentioned her brother again and stopped calling him Fred. Over the summer, Holly changes a lot. Jose moves into the apartment, though he is often in Washington. Holly seems happier, content learning to keep house, cleans her apartment, and speaks Portuguese. She cooks unsuccessful meals for Jose and the narrator, and begins talking about her future as Jose's wife. Holly tells to the narrator that she is six weeks pregnant.

She tellsthe narrator that she is tired of pretending to love men that she knew were "rats", and that excluding Doc, Jose was her "first non-rat romance." She loves Jose.

Through the final weeks of summer, the narrator and Holly become closer, learning to communicate calm. When Jose is out of town, he and Holly go to Chinatown and watch ships from the Brooklyn Bridge. Holly tells him about her wish: she will return to NewYork. She confesses that she loves New York because she loved that city very much.

Analysis

Section 10 suggests that the narrator realizes he is in love with Holly. Jealous of what he assumes is Holly's marriage to Rusty Trawler, the narrator begins to explore his feelings about her. He compares his love for her to his family love. He suggests that this love was powerful because it was non sexual, pointing out main themes: the diversity and validity of loving relationships among adults. Also, the narrator again implies that he is a homosexual.

Hearing of her brother's death, Holly's behavior is violent and self-destructive. She destroys her furniture. It is shown up her little implication in relationships. Though her rage at Fred's death describes that her attachment to her brother was real and powerful. She avoids further relations , maybe being a way she behaves because she lost her brother.

Fred appears to symbolize Holly's sense of freedom; a recurrent fantasy of hers was that the two of them would escape to Mexico, where they would raise horses. Accordingly, at Fred's death, Holly allows Jose to move in her in her own apartment. She transforms herself into a housewife. She furnishes her apartment – something she claimed she wouldn't do until she felt she "belonged" – and stops dying her signature multi-colored hair. She becomes pregnant and became interested in cooking and Portuguese. She tells to the narrator that she is happy and that she loves Jose.

In an extended monologue, Holly justifies her reasons for settling down, claiming that she was tired of her promiscuous lifestyle, "rat" boyfriends, and her bouts of the "mean reds". Section 11 describes again her being different . Yet, while Holly seems happy, the narrator is unconvinced that she has indeed settled down. He notes that while she is proud of her cooking, it is actually awful. The narrator thinks that she plays this role badly.

While section 11 deals with Holly's transformation, it is implicitly concerned with the narrator's particular character flaw: his reluctance to be anything but a passive observer of his own life. While he discovers that he loves Holly, he does not tell her this . The narrator's passivity is, in fact, exaggerated in this section by the fact that he has no dialogue apart from his telling Holly "do shut up." This remark is provoked by a sudden anger at his feeling . The narrator recognizes his perpetual feeling of exclusion is, like a boat moored to a dock, holding him back and he does not change this quality.

The final metaphor of the section, which compares the narrator's final days with Holly to autumn leaves blowing in the wind, indicates the banality and the falsity of Holly's new personality. The narrator can't tell the days apart, as they are all alike. The alike to autumn leaves, which are on the stream of death, symbolizes the end of the narrator's friendship with Holly.

Sections 12 & 13

Summary

On the 30th of September, the narrator's birthday, he waits for the postman, whom he hopes will be bringing money from his family. He runs into Holly, who invites him to go horseback riding as a last out going before she leaves to marry Jose in Brazil. She tells that she can't leave New York city without saying goodbye to her favorite horse, Mabel Minerva.

The two go by taxi to the Central Park and on the way, Holly tells that she will miss him. She tells him that O'Shaughnessy gave her $500 as a wedding present. The narrator, dissapointed because she is leaving so suddenly, tries to tell her that she is already married.

At the stables, Holly takes a mare for the narrator, who is rider without experience, while she mounts Mabel Minerva. As they ride across Central Park, the narrator feels that his love is high for Holly but cannot keep her with him. It is more important for him that Holly to be happy.. This moment is changed by some boys who scare the horses. The narrator's horse rises on her hind legs and begins a violent gallop across the park and out into Fifth Avenue traffic.

Eventually, the narrator's runaway horse is brought to a halt by a mounted police officer and Holly, who has been following on Mabel Minerva. Holly tells the narrator he could have been killed and kisses his cheeks. The narrator becomes shy.

Back in his apartment, the narrator recovers in a bath.  Sapphia Spanella knocks on the door and then enters, followed by two plain-clothes detectives, one male and one female. She points to Holly and identifies her as "the wanted woman". The female detective places her hand on Holly and tells her to join but Holly warns not to obilge her to do something she did not want to do. As Holly is escorted out of the apartment, she asks the narrator to feed her cat.

Holly's arrest is on all the front pages of the daily newspapers. To the narrator's surprise, the news had nothing to do with runaway horses; rather, Holly was implicated in a drug action to Sally Tomato. O'Shaughnessy was also arrested, and revealed to be not a lawyer but a defrocked priest with a history of arrests for mafia activity. Holly had been accused of acting as a liaison between Sally and O'Shaughnessy.

The narrator notices how the coverage distorts Holly's story for sensational effect, calling her a "movie starlet" when she was only an extra in films and saying that she was arrested in "her luxurious apartment" when she was arrested in his own bathroom. She admitted to having used marijuana. The papers also tell that narrator that despite her arrest, Holly remains unconvinced of Sally's guilt.

Analysis

Section 12 describes the narrator closure over his grief at Holly's sudden leaving. Holly convinces the narrator to go horseback riding, pointing the final appearance of horses as a recurrent motif in the novella. Holly associates horses with her brother Fred as she wanted to move to Mexico and raise horses. As Holly and the narrator ride alongside each other , the narrator feels that he loves so much Holly that he can accept her leaving only because he wants to see her happy. Capote desribesthe narrator as being Holly's brother Fred, a person with whom she felt safe and cared for. This association suggests the deep link between Holly and the narrator.

The section also puts the two characters up for contrast. Holly and the narrator when they wore the masks. The similar language ties the two trips and sets them up for comparison. His pure happiness during both the theft and the horseback ride shows that Holly's unconventional and spontaneous attitude is what is missing from the narrator's own life, and suggests that his attachment to Holly is a wish to become like her.

This near-tragic end to Holly and the narrator's last adventure serves two purposes. First, it shows the special tie between the two characters . Moreover, Holly's rescue of the narrator could be seen as a reward because once he helped her.

Section 13 is a structural departure from the rest of the novella. Breakfast at Tiffany's is a linear narrative: events are told in the order in which they happen. In section 13, the order is reversed: the reader is told about the consequences of Holly's arrest before the arrest itself. Moreover, the majority of the section directly quotes newspaper coverage of the arrest. The reader is offered a new point of view. In this section Capote uses an unexpected structure that mirrors the shocking turn of events.

Objectivity is being impossible here. Lies, gossip, and stories, all coming to be true, play important roles in offering information between characters and shaping how they think about others and themselves. Capote demonstrates that even the purportedly "objective" information of the newspaper is itself prone to the same kind of errors, exaggerations, and biases as the "fictional" stories he writes, and the "fraudulent" tales Holly tells.

Sections 14 , 15 & 16

Summary

Holly is in charge, and the narrator and Joe Bell do not know for sure if Holly is guilty. The narrator tells Joe that he thinks Holly is innocent because she was only delivering messages for Sally. Joe implores the narrator to find for her a good lawyer.

The narrator phones O.J. Berman, and then .Rusty Trawler .Mag picks up the phone, and tells the narrator that they are not interested in Holly’s problems. She tells him that Holly was an immoral drug addict, and that she belongs in prison. The narrator considers phoning Doc , but then remembers Holly's wish to keep in secret her marriage.

Finally, the narrator speaks to Berman, who assures him for the best lawyer in New York, Iggy Fitelstein, for Holly. The narrator waits for Holly , fed her cat but she is still in prison. The narrator finds a strange man in the apartament who pretends to be Jose’s cousin and who lets a letter for Holly. The narrator assures that he will hand the letter.

The narrator visits Holly in the hospital where he meets her after her brother’s death. She asks about Jose and he shows the letter. Holly tells him to read for her but first she takes care of her look.

The narrator reads Holly Jose's letter, which explains that even if he loves her, he can't afford to marry a woman involved in a public scandal because this will cause him problems. He asks her to forgive for her gesture and Holly seeme a little affected. She loved that man , sincerily.

Thay start to discuss about something else and Holly tells the narrator that she in planning to go to Brazil. In fact she asks the narrator to go with her to Holly’s apartament and then takes her to the airport to catch the flight. The narrator tries to explain her that she is still sick and that she has still problemsbecause of Sally. She wishes to escape public scrutiny. Even if a jury found her innocent, she explains, she would have no future in New York and she wants to escape from that life. She asks the narrator to write on a list the name of the 50 richest men in Brazil and tells him to try and find the medal because she thinks she needs a little luck.

Analysis

Spanella symbolises here the moral and social status quo of the middle century America. While Joe and the narrator want to helpher they find that Mag and Rusty changed towards Holly. They do not want to be close to her anymore and Mag is sure that Holly has problems and thinks Holly is guilty together with Sally. Berman takes a good lawyer for Holly and finds out that people who knew Holly made use of her. Holly thought all the time that she was lucky for men’s money and their favor but the narrator and Joe reman close to her, show their affection for Holly and a very interresting thing is that even they are gay , they both care about her. They are poor which demonstrates the money is not important all the time. Another surprise is when Joe writes a letter to Holly , telling her that they cannot continue thei relationship because of her problems. In conclusion the only who cares about Holly is the narrator. Holly tries to hide her sadness , being preocupied of her look, but she still suffers.

Sections 17 &19

Summary

On Friday, it is raining so heavily the narrator is convinced Holly's flight will be cancelled. She escapes the hospital and waits for the narrator at Joe's bar, where he has agreed to meet her . Joe tells the narrator to leave Holly and to care about his own life but he cannot do that. He cares too much to ignore her.

At the bar, Joe, Holly and the narrator drink brandy. Holly is taken by a limousine fom the hospital, she changes her clothes and wears a dress. The narrator accompanies Holly to the airport and during the journey they do not talk. They drink and watch outside the window.

In Spanish Harlem, Holly suddenly asks the driver to pull up to the curb. She leaves the car with the cat and lets the cat there because she considers is the best place for her.

Holly tells him again the story that she is an independent person, so it is the cat so the life goes on. At a traffic lights when the car stops she exists the car and leaves.

The cat is not on the corner where Holly dropped him. They search the neighborhood but she is convinced that her cat is gone and Holly realizes that they "did belong to each other. He was mine." The narrator promises Holly he would serch for the cat and take care of it. . She tells him that she is sad for herself, and that it was tragic to "not know what's yours until you've thrown it away." She suffers because she abandoned her cat more tan because of all her problems she had in the past.

Holly is found by authorities in Rio, Sally dies and her apartament is rented to a young man named Quaintance Smith. The narrator receives a postcard from Holly informing him that she has moved on from Brazil to Buenos Aires

She tells that she has a relationship with a wealthy married man and writes that she will send an address once she finds a place to live. The narrator does not receive the address and feels very sad because ne wanted to tell her that he sold two of his stories.also he wanted to let Holly know that he found her cat and he was very happy because of theis event.

Analysis

We are told about Holly’s final day in New York. In this section appears the real afection between Holly and the narrator. Joe only shows affection through giving her some flowers at the bar. In fact the flowers are scattering on the floor and describes that Joe could not tell Holly he loved her. He was maybe scared or a weak person. A very important episode in the book is the one when Holly abandons her cat . She did that because she wanted to change, she tells the writer again that they did not belong one to the other because they were both independent. She does not want a close relatiomship not even with an animal. She has to be only Holly. Holly said once that the cat was the same her: without a home, free, with an unreal name. She acts that way with the cat because she feels she was abandoned by her family, by her brother, by her friends, by Jose. She thinks taht if she lets the cat in the rain somebody would save her, the cat would have a diferent destiny, a changed life. Actually Holly is waiting for a salvation too and in this part of the book she is the most sincere. Holly's postcard informs the narrator that she has returned to her old ways, using men for their money, unable and unwilling to find a stable home. That she did not stay in touch with the narrator retroactively casts a negative light on their friendship, and suggests that perhaps her feelings for him were not as strong as they had appeared. The narrator tells that a young man named Quaintance Smith moved into Holly's apartment, where he entertained as many male visitors as Holly. The mention of his many "gentleman callers", along with the name "Quaintance" – a reference to George Quaintance, a painter of the 1940s and 1950s whose art was overtly homosexual in content – marks that the new tenant is gay, practicing an unorthodox lifestyle that links him symbolically with both Holly and the narrator.

The most important in the final of the book is that we learn that the narrator has maintained warm feelings toward his old friend. He keeps his promise to her and searches for her cat. He muses that, along with a home, the cat likely has a name; he is "certain he'd arrived somewhere he belonged." A home and a name were, for Holly, the two symbols of belonging, and the narrator hopes that Holly has achieved the same things. Thisfeeling shows the narrator's continued affection for Holly even in her absence. In fact the book was also about the narrator’s life changed because he loved Holly.

Chapter 5

Themes

Stability vs. Freedom

We could say that we have two types of characters here: Holly-symbolises the freedom and the narrator- a symbol for stability. They are so different but close to each other in the same time. They live differently but alike. They are two ooposite people who want to find themselves.

The psychological battle between the need for stability and the desire for freedom is perhaps the central theme of Breakfast at Tiffany's. The conflict structures the relationship between the narrator and Holly, who are opposite human beings. While the narrator is happy to have his first home, Holly is followed by her need to change places, people and things. Even Holly's identity is in a constant state of flux. Holly assumes the name "Holiday Golightly", which hides her strategy of avoiding stability by making a holiday out of life, and abandoning relationships and responsibilities when they threaten to attack her freedom. For Holly, the distinction between stability and freedom is articulated by two of the novella's major symbols: animals –the cat and Tiffany's –the home. Holly hates the caging of animals, and refuses to give a name to her cat. She feels he doesn't "belong" to her. Her fantasy that one day she will have, "breakfast at Tiffany's," an absurdity since Tiffany's does not serve food, indicates her choice to avoid stability . Capote suggests that each can learn something from the other. The mutual influence of the two friends is demonstrated by their Christmas gift exchange, in which Holly gives the narrator a bird cage and the narrator gives her a medal of St. Christopher. The presents illustrate a link between stability and freedom: Holly's present is a cage because she hated to be caught to be closed , and the narrator's gift is a medal of the patron saint of travel, but it comes from Tiffany's, Holly's personal symbol of home. By the conclusion of Breakfast at Tiffany's, it is clear that this influence has, at least in part, been realized: Holly confesses her sense of "belonging" with her cat, and the narrator reveals that he has enjoyed lengthy trips around the world.

While Holly and the narrator represent different psychological attitudes toward stability and freedom,Breakfast at Tiffany's suggests that both characters belong to larger worlds. The narrator feels a constant outsider, his nose pressed against a glass, and Holly is convinced that she is a "wild thing", unsuited to a proper place in society.

Naming as Identification

The names in this book have much significance because the characters have names or nicknames that suggest their defining personality . Mag Wildwood- is wild and the homosexual is Quaintance Smith, whose name references the gay artist George Quaintance. We are not told the name of the narrator maybe because he is considered to be an outsider of the society, a different human being with special qualities and Holly- a character full of mystery who changes her name because she wants to have a different life, a beautiful one without poor. She does not name her pet cat, as she feels he doesn't properly "belong" to her. This statement shows the fact that proper names mark both personal and public identity. Like the cat, the narrator's unnamed status in the novel suggests that he doesn't "belong" to any person or thing. The narrator holds his name to protect his personal identity. She refuses to take or give a fixed identity until she feels at home in the world.

Rebirth

Several events in Breakfast at Tiffany's  take place around Christmas Day. The discovery of the African carving that makes the narrator to tell his story occurs on Christmas Day, 1956. On Christmas Eve, 1943, Holly and the narrator exchange gifts for a symbolic friendship which will link them -the medal, and the birdcage. Finally, Sally Tomato dies in Sing Sing on Christmas Day, 1944.

The "holy day" and the traditional plant of Christmas is tied to Holly’s name. The church explain that Christmas is a symbol of rebirth, as the birth of the Messiah enabled His followers to be "born again" through His teachings and the ritual of baptism. Christmas brings with it the New Year, a new beginning, another life.

Isolation

Isolation, the wish for it, and the fear of it, are central themes in Breakfast at Tiffany's. In many ways, isolation describes a desire to stay unconfined by close personal relationships since a life being alone presents no complicated attachments to other people. But if it is much isolation it can also be a proof to be a source of great fear as characters realize that we all want a sense of belonging at some place in our lives. We see isolation propel some characters and it is showed to prevent others from ever moving forward in their lives, and it impacts most aspects of the novel.

Friendship

Friendship is a delicate feeling. It can be wonderful and great but it can also provoke pain and sufference . The friendships in this novel are, for the most part, superficial and are based on a profit and benefits , on what one person can get from another. But every once in a while true friendship develops and we discover this even more because of how anomalous it is. These friendships represent the particularly interesting relationships in Breakfast at Tiffany's because they let us to see instances of loyalty, tenderness, and caring in the midst of a world that seems to enclosed these things.

The Diversity of Love

We find here many kinds of love: a romantic one: Mag and Rusty, family love: Holly- Red, moral love Holly-the cat, true love : Holly-the narrator. Many of the characters feel they must love Holly, some of them because they desire Holly sexually, others , as Rusty, need Holly to fulfill his quasi-sexual infantile complex, Mag desires to share Holly's social contacts and apartment, Berman seeks to profit from Holly's potential as an actress.Holly wants from these people what cand they ofer as a reward: money, professional contacts, or help. The narrator and Joe Bell, do not want Holly sexually.they are sincere in their relations with Holly, they help her and it seem they are the only friends that Holly had. Holly discovers she loves her cat only after she abandons. She thought if she frees the cat , it will have abetter life, a free one. After a time she realises we cannot be happy if we are abandoned so she asks the narrator to search for the cat .

Nature vs. Culture

Through the character of Holly Golightly, Breakfast at Tiffany's explores one of the major themes of Western literature: the opposition of nature and culture. Holly identifies with nature – wild, untamed, and unknowable – over the structured, convention-bound world of human culture. Animals, both wild and domestic, symbolize Holly's rejection of social convention. As the child bride of Doc Golightly, her freedom from marriage is paralleled by her releasing her tamed pet crow. As a New York socialite, her self-sufficiency is embodied in her unnamed cat, a stray who Holly calls "an independent". The cage, a symbol of the human imprisonment of nature, remains an object of anxiety for Holly throughout the novel, and she refuses to even look at animals in the zoo.

While Holly considers herself a "wild thing", inherently unsuited to the rules that govern human culture, it appears that this is, at least in part, a facade. Holly is more than willing to be domesticated when she is offered the right price, and settles down more or less happily with the wealthy Jose. Her reliance on fine things and entertainment, and her worship of Tiffany's, a near-universal symbol of New York capitalist excess, indicates that Holly's appetites are not those of an animal, but a woman remarkably invested in the products of American culture. This ambivalence is suggested by another recurring animal motif: horses.

The horse is a long-established figure for human control over nature and animal instinct; for Holly, horses appear to represent her control over men. Her first boyfriend after running away from Doc is a horse jockey, she keeps volumes of books about horses on her bookshelf as "research" for her involvements with male suitors, and she fantasizes about running off to Mexico, where she plans to train horses with her brother Fred. She marks the end of her friendship with the narrator with a horseback ride, in which she demonstrates her skill as a rider. In each case, Holly has emotional or sexual control over the male character in the episode. When the narrator's bolts and runs away wildly, it prefigures Holly's loss of Jose when she is arrested later that day. While Holly associates herself with nature and the "wild things" she identifies with, the novella presents Holly in a more complex relationship with the natural world. In her relationships with men, she acts the part of both wild animal and trainer, achieving emotional and sexual control over her male admirers while evading responsibility and commitment.

Art as Commodity

Holly is the novella's major symbol for art. Her persona is self-constructed. Even her signature appearance is the result of deliberate artifice. Her hair is dyed, she diets. She considers to be an artifcial object, one sold on a sexual market. The narrator wants to write something valuable, not something for everybody , so he considered art necessary for integrity and not for commodity.

The narrator begins selling his fiction successfully. Holly, now symbolized by the African carving of her head, represents a less commodified definition of art: the artist refuses to sell the carving to Yunioshi, even when he is offered a large amount of much needed goods and money. The carving is a personal expression of the artist's feeling for Holly. Holly’s final image is not for sale.

Information and storytelling

Breakfast at Tiffany's is less a novella about telling stories about Holly. Capote articulates this focus on both structural and thematic levels. Holly is introduced to the reader through four layered narratives: the African's story, which he tells to Yunioshi, Yunioshi's story, which he tells to Joe Bell, Joe's story, which he tells to the narrator, and the narrator's story, which he relates to the reader. The introduction foreshadows the emphasis on storytelling and information maintained throughout the novella.

Throughout Breakfast at Tiffany's, the narrator's information about Holly comes from three sources: his observations of Holly, the stories she tells him, and the stories that others tell him about her. Often, the stories about Holly are at odds with each other or with his own observations, as when Holly's own tale of her happy childhood conflicts with Berman's account of her as a teenage runaway. That no "official" narrative of Holly exists exemplifies how, within the world of the novella, story-telling is distinguished from true, or objective information. Berman, Doc, and Jose all have different investments in Holly, and their stories function to communicate their own attitudes towards Holly rather than identify truth. The lengthy quotes from newspaper reports on Holly's arrest, which contain numerous exaggerations and errors, cast a similarly skeptical light on the seemingly objective information in the press. Perhaps, the novella suggests, there is no such thing as pure objectivity, and even information is a form of story-telling subject to distortion and personal bias.

In contrast to such narratives, the narrator writes stories that are largely descriptive: "not the kinds of stories you can tell". Aware that stories are inherently subjective, revealing more about the teller than the object of the tale, the intensely private narrator refrains from the kind of storytelling that the other characters appear to indulge in regularly. However, the narrative of Breakfast at Tiffany's is presented as the narrator's written recollections of his friendship with Holly. In light of the critical treatment of narrative throughout the novella, the reader is implicitly encouraged to treat the narrator's own words with similar skepticism. Rather, the reader is compelled to readBreakfast at Tiffany's not as a story about Holly, but as a story about the narrator and his investment in their friendship.

Memory and the past

Memory and the past can be positive and negative forces in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Memories remain the only things that make some of the characters happy during their life because they chose a simple and normal life. But, for other characters as Holly memories and the past simply don’t let them life properly and they are obliged to live them again and again. These memories cause them sufference, isolation, solitude and even a big impact upon their future. They cannot find themselves even if they make big efforts to forget about the past. They cannot live the present because the past let big marks upon them.

Transience

This feeling brings the wish to remain happy and Holly shows the best of this desire. She lets everything behind her, she changes locations and people without regrets, she wants very much to live her life as she dreamt at. Holly drives the action in the book. We get the feeling early on that the relationships and connections that develop won't be long-lasting, that they are matters of convenience more than anything else. This take on relationships creates a general level of anxiety since we're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. In such a different world it's hard to know what to hold onto and this impacts how we read the novel since it puts us on stream.

The Home

We cannot find an idea of "home" in Breakfast at Tiffany's, and this is what makes it such an interesting theme. Homefor some people is a feeling of belonging, and it doesn't matter very much the location. For other people, home has to do with the people close to you, people who get involved into your life, people who bring happiness or sorrow and people who make you feel safe. Home is notbelieved to be only the literal place where one lives. It's not the apartment or house that gives someone an address. It could be a whole city or the feeling of being near family or friends and it means different things to different people depending on their life experiences and on their expectations. The vision of life when you sspeak about a home is different for each people because has a different meaning.

Love

We found different ideas about love in this book : love between friends, unrequired love, traditional love, family love , strange love among fellows. All the time love provokes different feelings: happiness, dissapointment, regrets, sadness, profit. There is no fairy-tale love in this story. We find a realistic and memorable love here, one which affects people and makes them fight for their future. "You can love somebody without it being like that. You keep them a stranger, a stranger who's a friend".This is a kind of love from Joe and it shows the possibility of loving someone who we never really know. Holly is not a strange person to Joe, but she's a stranger because that he doesn't know much about her, and even so he can love her as a friend. "Of course he was never my lover; as far as that goes, I never knew him until he was already in jail. But I adore him now, after all I've been going to see him every Thursday for seven months, and I think I'd go even if he didn't pay me" .Holly doesn't love Sally in the traditional sense, but she has much affection for the man over the past seven months of their relationship. She does not love him, she adores him. "Sure I loved her. But it wasn't that I wanted to touch her".Joe loves Holly in a way that doesn't require sex. He loves her without it being about a physical relationship. He loves her just for her.

Chapter 6

Breakfast at Tiffany's- A Feminist Critique

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) has become a film classic, enjoied by each new generation for its unique and light-hearted humour, as well as catapulting its star Audrey Hepburn in to the realms of an untouchable icon. Set in New York, it is ’’charming, sentimental, modern day fairy-tale’’, with the New York high society . The protagonist, Holly Golightly, a woman who likes to live helped by what can only be described as escorting, being an independent woman , leaving her marriage out west to become a star of high society on her own two feet free from the constraints of the 1950s gender roles. But is Holly really worthy of this inspirational pedestal that women for generations have granted her?

Bell Hooks argued that the foundation of feminist struggle 'must be solidly based on a recognition of the need to eradicate the underlying cultural basis and causes of sexism', which means that the attitudes of both men and women must be changed in order for oppression of females to end . She furthers this by pointing to women coming face to face with their own sexuality, and the fact that 'women were willing to take risks to have sexual freedom-to have the right to choose' . In this light one can locate Holly's sexual agency within the feminist theories of the sixties. Holly is free because she does not fight her own sexuality, while taking men's money for sexual favours she manipulates her sexuality for her own profit.

However, going back to Hooks' first point, Holly can also be seen as the personification of what takes women back in the feminist battle. By exploiting her sexuality, Holly still remains very steady within the patriarchal image that keeps women oppressed. While on the surface Holly seems the archetypal liberated woman, financially independent, free of her husband and sexually liberated, underneath she is still dependent on men for money, even if the money comes from 'trips to the powder room' .For Holly to be truly an item of feminism she would have to be sexually liberated without being inferior to the male hegemony that describes male control over women, but as a women whose lifestyle is dependent on cash handouts from men Holly is far from a liberated woman. The freedom she professes to relish and protect throughout the film is a fantastic freedom of a woman deeply set within the confines of patriarchal dominance.

One the other hand, the film uses the other main character, adapted substantially from the novella, to balance out the sexual deviancy of Holly. Paul, the leading opposite of Golightly is portrayed as a gigolo, ultimately paid for sex by a wealthy married woman. 'Thus, they are both severely compromised morally, which allows them to understand and forgive each others transgressions, and this in turn allows the viewer to do the same' For a woman to be financially dependent on a man was a norm in 1960s cinema, the same can not be said in a gender reversal of male dependence. That both the female and male characters are dependent on the opposite sex for money gives an equality to their genders, rather than the typical patriarchy over women so often depicted in films of the time.

This understanding of each other is what ultimately leads to our fairy tale story line, where in the end scene Holly is seen to let down her barriers that she has built to ensure her freedom in favour of her feelings for Paul. However as Wasson has pointed out this does not come about through the conventional plot methodology where; the guy wants to get the girl into bed and she wants to stay out of it-until they get married. And when they finally do the movie ends' This formula does not work for Breakfast at Tiffany', not least because Holly could not play the meek young virgin trying to steer clear of the advances of Paul, they are equal in their sexual transgressions so that plot would not work. Instead, the plot unravels as 'a contemporary romantic comedy for the modern generation', where the already sexually active woman, Holly, who has achieved her own financial stability, even if through other men's pockets, allows a man to love her and she love him back (Ibid).

This was wholly summed up in the final scene where Paul proclaims; ' life's a fact, people do fall in love….you call yourself a free spirit, a wild one, well baby your already in that cage, you built it yourself', to which she finally let her guard down and puts on an engagement ring In many respects this reflects the identity politics of the second wave of feminism, that the 'personal was political' and that it was women's own experiences of oppression that was important Holly, who ran from a marriage, has built a protective wall around herself, shying away from male relationships, unless for financial gain, to ensure her freedom when actually she has ensured her own oppression. It is not until she takes control and allows her relationship with Paul, a man as already noted, who was her equal, that she is released from her cage. That is the feminism of the period, identifying oneself without the infiltration of male dominance, something that Paul's social status allows Holly to do.

In many respects Holly Golightly can not be seen as a beacon of second wave feminism, she is without doubt subject to male patriarchy through her reliance on men for money. However the re-structuring of the novella to incorporate the character of Paul as a male gigolo has helped create some themes that can be located within the feminist movement of the 1960s. Holly is able to embrace her own identity, which through her attempts to combat the constraints of marriage, has left her trapped without being oppressed by the man she loves, who is her social equal, the core desire of the movement. Together Paul and Holly created a 'modern' romantic comedy, that embraced ideas of sexual agency, freedom from oppression and equality in gender relations, all set against the back-drop of high society New York and of course the now cult shop that is Tiffany's.

Chapter 7 –The Film

Breakfast at Tiffany's Breakfast at Tiffany's on Film

The 1961 film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is more known than the novella it was adapted from. The film closely follows much of the original dialogue and departs from the novella in crucial moments. Screenwriter George Axelrod said of the adaptation process: "Nothing really happened in the book, we had to do was devise a story, get a central romantic relationship, and make the hero a red-blooded heterosexual." Many of the major changes to the novella's plot and characters were done because of the move to a typical Hollywood love story. In the book, the narrator is a private, homosexual without a name. In the movie, this character was put into "Paul Varjak", a man who is love with Holly. The film introduced the character "Tooley" as Paul's benefactor, and missed most of the novella's references to Holly's sexual promiscuity and quasi-prostitution. While such moves were the inevitable result of mid-century taboos arround sex, they also show how such taboos were organized near gender. The film describes Capote's depiction of semi-prostitution, but means the activity from Holly to the male protagonist, preserving the dominant idea of sexuality. Accordingly, Capote's provocative exploration of sexual difference does not appear in the film version of "Breakfast at Tiffany's". The conversations of lesbianism, homosexuality, and gender that made the novella so unique were not put on the screenplay, and the two main characters are portrayed according to the dominant gender stereotypes of the early sixties. The film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" preserves all of Holly's qualities except her short, "boyish" haircut, which in the novella symbolized her rejection of the current feminine ideal. The film revises Capote's ambiguous conclusion in favor of a romantic happy ending between Paul and Holly that conforms to the formula of mainstream Hollywood cinema.

In a letter to his aunt, Capote said that he had fistly chose Marilyn Monroe to play the part of Holly, a suggestion the producers dismissed for "image reasons". While the choice of Audrey Hepburn, whose famous thinness matched Holly's, may have been more aesthetically appropriate, it is likely that the producers were also concerned that Monroe's overt eroticism would undermine the project of de-sexualizing Holly's character. Hepburn, widely considered the epitome of class and tact, was in fact initially reluctant to take the role because of the character's loose moral character. Nevertheless, Hepburn's turn as Holly Golightly is often considered among her best performances, and gained her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Hepburn's costumes, designed by legendary designers Edith Head and Givenchy, had an immediate and profound influence on both 1960s couture style and popular women's fashion. To this day, "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is singled out as one of the greatest achievements in costume design, and Hepburn's image as Holly Golightly remains synonymous with elegant, minimalist style.

Chapter 8

Book compared to film

The premise of Capote’s 1958 novella is exceedingly simple. The narrator withaout a name, a young male writer, gets a phone call from a friend, and it’s through reconnecting with the former friend wherein the narrator understands that he has realizes what a great story he has to tell about Holly Golightly, the girl a neighbor of him. Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a sketch about a girl who behave as everything would be rightin her past and present life but who is very sad, lonely, and empty. Golightly likes to spend her time around socialites because she likes money and she need it and she organises parties with the best of them. Her apartment lacks furnishing, and the only thing it stands close to her is her cat. The narrator cannot discuss with Holly all the time because she is dose not need a friend. She needs parteners. Which is not to say he’s a hero in the story – he’s not. He cares a lot of Holly and wants a relationship whish is not welcomed by Holly. She is looking for something elese in the world.   Nineteen-year-old Golightly is a complex character. She presents herself as girl full of life, loves parties, by associating herself with wealth and luxury and fascination with little things. She does it even further through her job, which can best be described as a liaison among a bunch of men who are into drugs. She likes to be strange and complicated , but she presents herself as simplistic because it is easiest. It’s the narrator who likes to start a conversation with Holly but she avoids his ideas and thinking. She does not let him inside the cage she’s built for herself. 
I think Golightly has built this world around because she wants to be distant from the other people and this way she can discover her enemies and her true friends. Her worst enemy is her life bacause in the past she did not have a perfect one and now she puts herself in danger because of her relationship with Sally and even with other guests in her apartament. Where it looked like she was treating everyone around her as worthless, as artifice and throwaway, what the narrator learns about Golightly was that she was really treating herself as such. It was just easier to project upon those around her. We discover this attitudeby having a pet-her cat , being Holly’s single possession. When she prepares to leave New York she leaves the cat , meaning that she wants to let the past back , without regrets, tears or any other symbols that appeared in her life. She wants also to forget about the former marriage and children and responsibilities that show up . She tells the cat it was a great run but no one belongs to anyone else and so now he has the chance to start fresh. 
Capote’s novella is a character sketch, but it’s not just a character sketch of Golightly, but of the writer. The narrator is a writer and in the book he is a character writing about a pained, removed, relationship-avoiding girl and as much as he tries to crack her open, she is beyond his control.he wants much to love her, to take care of her, to have a relation with her, to understand her or to stay close to her all the time he remains only the writer. He likes to treat her with much respect and all the time she needs him he likes to be there , even if he suffers because she does not share love with him. He can only do so much for her. He can offer his depiction of her with pretty words and descriptions – and this is a huge strength of the novella – but ultimately, Golightly is a character who has to play out her story the way her story is meant to be played out. He can only direct her so far. The rest is up to her decisions and to the reader. 
In other words, Capote’s offered us the writer’s experience with writing. With creating a character and a back story and a world. Then he leaves it. What’s masterful about how he does this is that he himself is never the actual narrator in the story – he’s not the one writing Golightly’s story. He’s writing the story of the narrator who is then writing Golightly’s story. 
In 1961, George Axelrod took a stab at taking Capote’s character sketch and turning it into a film starring Audrey Hepburn as a much-aged-past-19 Holly Golightly; blue-eyed George Peppard as the flawless and swoon-worthy narrator, now named Paul; Patricia Neal as the woman who is Peppard’s “keeper” , Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi.

Axelrod made the story his own. He takes a little from the source material, but he made this story his own. Which makes sense because Capote didn’t write a story – he wrote a character writing a character. 

In this adaptation of the story, Paul (who Golightly calls Fred throughout because he reminds her of her “brother” Fred) meets Golightly near immediately. There’s not a passage of time, but rather, he runs into her as he moves into the apartment complex where she dwells. Paul is a writer, but he’s not writing Golightly’s story in the film; rather, he’s writing “novels” and “other things.” He’s also a kept man. And boy, who wouldn’t want to keep a man like that? He’s dreamy. Whenever he bats his eyes, the angels sing and the world opens up and all women just flock to him. Neal is really lucky in her role as his keeper – she has him on a leash. He’s all hers. I want it noted right now that Hepburn and Neal are only three years apart in age but boy, did Axelrod play up an age difference.  

The film itself is not told through Paul’s point of view. We get a story about Paul. But is not important ; what is important is that Golightly is the object of Paul’s affection. Because he’s so dreamy, he can just have what it is he wants. He goes to Golightly’s parties – where she is certainly engaged in the crowd, enamored with the wealth and rich that rubbing elbows with socialites brings – where he tells her ahain that he loves and cares about her very much. He doesn’t want her to have the autonomy to chase the money she wishes to. He tells her that she has a man who loves her truely and not for her body , but for her entire being.  
Lucky for Paul, after enough pushing, Golightly changes her mind. She was wrong all along, silly girl. Maybe he was right for her and maybe he did know what was best for her.  

It’s sort of shoved in the middle of the film that Golightly was a married woman who fled her family and that Paul’s meant to be the messenger about her much older husband being back to retrieve her and remind her that he loves her and that people back home depend upon her. It’s also sort of shoved in there that she feels lost and lonely and like her life is meaningless.the truth is that she was not sad at all. Or she behaves as we cannot understand this attitude.
At the very beginning of the film Hepburn was really channeling Capote’s character. There’s a genuine listlessness, and she plays it so well. But the minute Paul enters her life and starts to be the Man She Needs, suddenly Hepburn’s portrayal of the sad and lonely Golightly changes.
During the pivotal party scene, where her apartment is lit with rich people and things, Golightly engages with her fellow attendees, and she’s an active part of the festivities. 
The moment when Hepburn cuts ties with “brother” Fred and the life she left before moving to NYC, the emotions ring false. She tranforms afters she is frunk and thsi transformation appear some changes.

After this transformation, when Golightly and Paul have their day – the one day that is the iconic piece of what people remember of the film and where she goes to Tiffany’s and lusts after finer things which isn’t really what Capote meant by the whole thing in the book – she’s not at all removed from the situation. She is all implied in the story and in her life. She’s living and engaging. She’s playing the customers and management at the store where they steal the masks from. This girl isn’t sad or removed from herself or her life. She’s been shown the way by a pair of baby blue eyes. Golightly Is a woman who can be caged and protected by someone like Paul.
This is the total opposite idea of what Capote intended. His story ends by suggesting that no character can be colored by happily ever after, and yet, Axelrod has taken the story and done nothing but make it a happily ever after. He desribes in his book taht hapiness is only a mask that people wear for a time and when they take it off everything changes. When you are a screen writter you can choose the character, location, design because you cand adapt everything.
Do we have exotic in the film? Yes , there is and it makes sense because Golightly is trying to be a socialite and an elite member of the New York City world that she would want to be close to Asians, Brazilians, and she’d want to spend time at a dance club where she could then have something foreign before her.

While the story took place in a time where that kind of portrayal might have been acceptable in society, the fact is, Mr. Yunioshi in the book is not the stereotypical Asian as he’s let to be seen to be in the film. In fact, he plays a bigger role in the book in that he tries, too, to engage with Golightly . he has feelings, he loves her and he actually wants to live with her. There’s pace and silence in the film and there’s an odd jump in passage of time that happens near the end, where we don’t know what had happened to Paul nor what happened to Golightly. But we know that Golightly is happy and is going to get married and Paul won’t let that happen. Then they are together. Time apart only made their feelings stronger, you know. 

That cat does not look happy. And that’s more authentic emotion right there than is shown throughout the rest of the film.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a bad movie? No.  Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not worth watching? No. 
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is a horrific adaptation that has nothing to do with the book and in fact contradicts the entire point of the book? Yes.
Even Capote thought the adaptation was pretty awful. According to Turner Classic Movies, this was his reaction: 
"Even though Breakfast at Tiffany's was a success and nominated for five Academy Awards, the one person who was not happy with the film was author Truman Capote. He was outspoken in his disapproval of what had been done with his book. He was unhappy with everything: the tone, the casting, the director. He felt betrayed by Paramount. 'I had lots of offers for that book, from practically everybody,' he said, 'and I sold it to this group at Paramount because they promised things, they made a list of everything, and they didn't keep a single one.' Capote was unhappy with the casting. 'It was the most miscast film I've ever seen,' he said. 'Holly Golightly was real-a tough character, not an Audrey Hepburn type at all. The film became a mawkish valentine to New York City and Holly, and, as a result, was thin and pretty, whereas it should have been rich and ugly. It bore as much resemblance to my work as the Rockettes do to Ulanova.'

After the release of the film version of Breakfast at Tiffany's, author Truman Capote was very vocal about his disdain for the film, and especially the casting of Audrey Hepburn as Holly, a role that he hoped would go to his friend, Marilyn Monroe.
Truman Capote later said that he considered actress Jodie Foster the perfect person to play Holly Golightly as he originally wrote her."  

Chapter 9

1. How does the movie version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s compare to the book?

The novella was made into a movie in 1961, starring Audrey Hepburn in one of her most famous roles.the movie is closer to the book but it also has some changes. It is eliminated the scene when the narrator speaks to Joe Bell about Holly’s face sculptured in wood in photos. The character Joe Bell cannot be seen and the story is updated to 1956. The narrator is put in a different image. The narrator has a name- Paul and he has already published his first stories. His interest is not publishing but being a very talented writer. He is stronger than the character in the book. There are introduced some scenes that are missing from the book; one when Paul and Holly want to order a ring with their initials on it. They want to buy a cheap ring from Tiffany’s. Holly and Paul are closer in the movie than in the film. They get more involved, behaving romantic. They kissed, so that is why the narrator has a stranger stability in life. Holly need a powerful man whom she could have a relationship with. The fact that Halloy rejects the narrator telling him hat she is going to marry a Brazilian offers tension to the action a nd events. Capote could not show this dramatism in his book.
Describing the end of the book , pure Hollywood we discover another change. They decide to look for the cat together , but the Hollywood is too crowded to finfd the animal easily. Finally they find the cat, feel very happy and have another kiss as happy end to their tension.
It is a traditional Hollywood ending for a romantic comedy, being different from the original. Capote himself did not approve of it. A movie should be analysed by its impact upon public and not for the changes and differences towards the book. .  Breakfast at Tiffany’s is very successful movie, with fine performances,comic scenes, dramatic conflict, and a satisfying emotional conclusion.
2. Is Breakfast at Tiffany’s “more style than substance”?

Some of Capote’s critics said that he focuses on style and not on he substance. John Updike said that the book can be considere comic and satiric. The party given at Tiffany’s apartment is a good example. Capote pays much attention to the characters as O. J. Berman, Rusty Trawler, and Mag Wildwood. These can be read and savored more than once. It is showed also accuracy in Holly’s long monolugue when she tells the narrator about her life , marriage anf belief. It carries a light but forceful energy; the variations in rhythm, peppered with slang, foreign expressions, idiosyncratic emphases, and the occasional epigram, perfectly express the spirit of the woman.
But Breakfast at Tiffany’s is more than just frothy style. In the metaphors that express Holly’s deepest desires, it touches on a universal symbol of meaning—the human waiting for peace, calm, and security. This is expressed in the metaphor of Tiffany’s the jewelers as a place where Holly can relax and escape the “mean reds”. It is touched on again in her image of herself as like a wild thing that lives in the sky. She tells Joe Bell that this is not as good as it might appear: she believes that it is better to dream than to live in a dream.this shows her solitary life and the feeling that se wants peace, calm, protection This captures the emptiness of her life and her longing for a place of rest, qualities that bring people hapiness.
3. What roles do Madame Sapphia Spanella and Joe Bell play in the novel?
These two characters have important roles. Madame Sapphia Spanella is the temptation who lives in Holly’s building and dislikes Holly. She puts a petition among the other tenants calling for Holly’s eviction, and she leads the two detectives to Holly when they want to arrest her. She tells that Holly is a “whore.” When she sees Holly with Doc Golightly, Holly’s husband, who is thirty-five years older than Holly, she immediately thinks the worst and says Holly is a lost case in the society. Madame Sapphia Spanella represents the model of person who will always be offended by someone like Holly . Hers is the voice of moral outrage. Capote puts her in the novel because he wants to show that Holly shocks people and remind the reader of this fact from time to time.
Joe Bell has a different purpose. Joe isa normal man who has a bar on Lexington Avenue, but he feels close to Holly and becomes her victim. In 1956, at the age of sixty-six, he is still thinking about her, twelve years after he last saw her. He was in love with Holly but did not want to have a sexual relationship with her; it was as if he idealized her and adored her . The fact that it was not only wealthy, high-society men like Rusty Trawler and José Ybarra-Jaegar who fell for Holly’s mystique, but also a regular Joe like Joe Bell, shows how Holly’s appeal was universal.all the men feel fascinated by her and Joe feels the same even if he doae not want to look like. He is introduced very early in the book.
4. Why is Breakfast at Tiffany’s sometimes called a prose-romance?
Critics consider Breakfast at Tiffany’s to be a realistic prose-romance. The realist writer wants to close his fiction to real life as much as possible, to give the impression that he is imitating things as they really are. As M. H. Abrams puts it in A Glossary of Literary Terms, the realist “prefers the average, the commonplace, and the everyday over the rarer aspects of the contemporary scene.” This words shows it clear that Breakfast at Tiffany’s is not a realist novel. The setting in New York is realistic enough , but the characters and the situations they get into , mostly Holly , are not. Critic Ihab Hassan has commented that Breakfast at Tiffany’s, as well as two of Capote’s early longer narratives, “engage reality without being realistic” . In contrast to realism is the romance. The modern prose-romance, according to M. H. Abrams, usually employs “larger than life” characters who are “sharply discriminated as heroes and villains”; the plot emphasizes adventure, “and is often cast in the form of a quest for an ideal.” Holly is a woman who is always searching for different things: a home, a lover, a place where she belongs to.

The role of music in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, both in the book and the film?
Holly Golightly plays the guitar frequently and the narrator often hears her playing and singing . One of the songs she enjoys most speaks bout the idea that she loves travelling and she wants to do this all her life. When she plays the guitar she cand dream. The guitar motif is common in Capote’s work, and in the movie it is even more prominent than in the book. The song in the film is“Moon River” and it includes none of the words that occur in the song Holly sings in the book. “Moon River” transmits her power to see something different from reality.

Bibliography

A Works of General Scope

1. Dan Grigorescu, ’’ Dicționarul Literatrii Americane”, Editura Floarea Darurilor, București, 1999;

2. Peter Conn, “O Istorie a Literaturii Americane “, Traducere si note de Cosana Nicolae si Dalida Pavlovici, Editura Univers, București, 1996

3. Malcom Bradbury, ’’The Modern American Novel “, Oxford University Press, 1992

4. Encyclopaedia Britannica

5 Leon Levițchi, “ O Istorie a literaturii engleze si americane”, editura Dacia , 1985

B Literary works :

1. J. Breen Breakfast at Tiffany's, Sight and Sound, XXXI:1, Winter, pp41-42 1961/1962

2.B. Edwards Breakfast at Tiffany's. Paramount (DVD).

3.B. Hooks Feminist Theory: from margin to centre. South End Press 1984

4.B. Hooks Feminism is for everybody: passionate politics. Pluto 2000

5. L. A. Kauffman ‘The Anti-Politics of Identity' in Ryan, B. (ed.) Identity Politics in the Women’s Movement. New York, New York University Press.2001

6.P. Kramer The Many Faces of Holly Golightly: Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Hollywood', Film Studies, (5), pp 58-64 2004

7. S. Wasson Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman. Harper Collins Publisher 2011

6. Nance, William L. The Worlds of Truman Capote. New York: Stein, 1970.

7. Waldmeir, Joseph J., and John C. Waldmeir, eds. The Critical Response to Truman Capote. Critical Responses in Arts and Letters. Westport: Greenwood P, 1999.

8. Levine, Paul. “Truman Capote: The Revelation of the Broken Image.” Virginia Quarterly Review 34 (1958): 600-17. Rpt. in Waldmeir and Waldmeir 81-93.

9. “Truman Capote: The Vanishing Image of Narcissus.” Wisconsin Studies in Contemporary Literature 1 (1960): 78-83. Rpt. in Radical Innocence: Studies in the Contemporary American Novel. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1961. 230-58.

10.Balakian, Nona. “The Prophetic Vogue of the Anti-heroine.” Southwest Review 47 (1962): 134-141.

11.Garson, Helen S. “Never Love a Wild Thing: Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” Truman Capote. Modern Literature Series. New York: Ungar, 1980. 79-89.

12. Gossett, Louise Y. “Violence in a Private World: Truman Capote.” Violence in Recent Southern Fiction. Durham: Duke UP, 1965. 145-58.

13. Capote, Truman, Breakfast at Tiffany’s: Penguin Books, London, 1961

14. Douglas, J. Susan, Where the Girls are: growing up female with the mass media.

New York:Times Books, 1994

15. Humm, Maggie, Feminism and Film. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1997, pp.3-38

C. Other sorces:

1. Internet sources: www.essaymania.com

www.bibliomania.com

www.Britannica.com

Conclusions

Searching identity is a difficult missions for people. Holly knew to hide this part of her because she wanted to look strange, happy, a dreamer who is sure that one day she will find the place where she belongs to. The people around her adimired her and understood that she does not regret anything, she actually let the past behind her. She is ready all the time to change locations, thinking without tears and regrets. She wears the best mask which hide a woman who loves men for their money and not for their personality and attitude. When she discovers that it is time to move to other part she does without looking back. She has temporary friends but the only she cared about are the narrator and Joe. Maybe the narrator does not have a name because Holly does not want to give him an identity. Travelling is the only thing that helps her get rid of her past life.

I think every woman has been a ”Holly” once in her life , but only a few of them has Holly’s courage and strong personality. We must remember her unique words:” I'm like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other.”