Julianna White

COM 271

Professor Byrnes

26 October 2009

                                Breakfast at Tiffany’s

        The movie that put Audrey Hepburn into the history books, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, has achieved iconic success and can be recognized by just about anyone.  Loosely based around the novel written by Truman Capote, the American film also starred George Peppard in the highest point of his career.  The music featured in the movie won two Academy Awards and the film as a whole was nominated in three other categories.  The black and white image of Audrey Hepburn holding an oversized cigarette holder is still seen everywhere today.  Blake Edwards, the director, effortlessly pulls every audience into the world of Holly Golightly and her out of the ordinary life full of glamour and emotional confusion.

        Truman Capote's 1958 masterpiece of American literature and inspiration for the 1961 film is a wonderful story about misguided love.  The novel is well deserving of a place within any compilation of literature and is epically deserving of a place within a collection of women's literature, as it presents a snapshot of a very human woman from the 1950's era United States.  

        Holly is not a woman you might want to frame, or one that you might aspire to become, primarily because her flaws are exposed for all to see.  However, she most definitely is defining of a cultured woman of the American 1950's: a modern debutant, carefree and aloof.  Her character is defining of the societal changes which took place during the post World War II 1950's when women gained independence they had not previously shared with men before the war, and the growing up period which was inevitable as they learned to walk on their own, free and spirited.  Women gained independence but they had not yet gained the ability to support themselves: this was a fault of the society.  The story shows this change beautifully, demonstrating the perspective of a man who falls in love with one of these new wild and spirited creatures that he does not completely understand.

        In the film and the novel, Holly’s distaste for the captivity of wild things reverberates through the entire storyline, tying the history of her life into a kind of loop.  She is constantly wandering, roaming, searching for a place to belong.  Golightly is the epitome of wild things, for what place does an untamed thing belong but in the wild?  The film puts forth the question but not the answer.

        The psychological struggle between the need for stability and the desire for freedom is perhaps the central concern of the story.  The conflict structures the relationship between Paul (Peppard’s character) and Holly, who are essentially opposing forces.  Holly is consumed by her need to constantly escape from places, people, and things.  Her name and identity aren’t even truthful, as the audience finds out during the course of the film.  Another instance where this holds true is Holly’s connection with the cat.  She loathes the caging of animals and refuses to give an actual name to the cat because she feels that it does not belong to her.  

        The cat in the story helps explore another one of the major themes seen in this story, as well as other works of Western literature: the disagreement of nature and culture.  Holly identifies with nature, untamed and uncultivated.  From her annulled marriage as a child to becoming a socialite of New York City, she seems to emerge from a “cage.”  In this sense, she is very much like the cat that stays with her in her apartment.

        During the movie, when the character Paul awakes her and is introduced into the storyline, she still somehow looks glamorous and beautiful when she answers the door in a fancy sleeping mask, glittery earplugs, and a man’s dress shirt.  Even though they had just met, she begins talking about her life and has him looking for her shoes, as she gets dressed.  Everything in her apartment is so disorganized and yet it does not seem to faze her in the slightest bit.  There are hardly any furnishings and there are strange things lying everywhere in disarray.  This once again shows how she has seemingly found temporary comfort with being wild and free, not planting herself fully in one location.  But, it appears that this is in part, a façade.  

        Holly is more than willing to be domesticated when she is offered the right price.  Her reliance on fine things and entertainment, and her worship of Tiffany’s – a universal symbol of New York capitalist excess, indicates that her appetites are of a woman remarkably invested in the products of American culture.

        Paul, or "Fred" as Holly calls him, is captivated by this curious and unique creature that resides in his apartment building.  Their first real intimate meeting after he helped her find her shoes, when she comes in through his fire escape to avoid a drunk

man, seems to catch him off guard.  She is brash, seeming not to care to climb into his bed to snuggle, confident in her sexuality. Throughout the story this is a continuing theme.  The women of the pre-WWII era would have been very much offended by this sort of behavior, but it seems to intrigue Paul.  As the story moves on, Paul develops much more than a passing interest in his neighbor, falling deeply in love with her, but always knowing that she will not have him.  She warns Paul that she will fly away if he tries to get too close.  Holly is a fiercely independent woman, and this makes her attractive to every man she comes into contact with.

        Serious mischaracterizations of Holly are sometimes made after watching the film or reading the novel, including the accusation that she is a whore or prostitute.  Granted, her behavior is not something that will ever win her a medal.  She uses most everyone she comes into contact with, either for money or simply as her playthings.  She does not, however, pressure these people into her company – they rather desire to be around her.  Her personality is magnetic throughout most of the film.  She is not a fantastic person, but she most definitely is a wonderful image of the type of woman people desired to be around in the 1950's era.

        Holly did not use these people out of sheer hatefulness, but out of necessity.  She had to survive childhood as a runaway in one of the hardest times in the history of the United States, obviously having no true formal education, which would provide a job for her to take care of herself.  She was forced to marry at the age of fourteen, again out of necessity, to find a way to provide for both herself and her brother.  She later leaves the situation, not because it is unbearable, but because she wants more and she wishes to explore and live her life.  These are desires shared by most everyone growing up, and while considering the circumstances most people could not fault her for her actions, it was the fault of her nature.  She was a fifteen-year-old girl, and she was not designed to be caged.

        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 she claims is worse than just fear.  Paul first likens Holly's nicknamed depression with the blues, but Holly assures him that they are not the same thing.  She said in response: "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."  To cure this state, Holly said that she often likes to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s.  Her sweet innocence and search for a home are revealed in the early scene in front of the store front window, which shows Holly's simplicity about the world.  When she tells Paul that nothing bad could happen to anyone at the jewelry store, she has a deep longing or sadness in her eyes as if searching for some answer to where else she could feel that sort of comfort off of the streets of New York City.

        It is interesting to note that the first thing she purchases at Tiffany’s during the film is after she and Paul decide to spend the day doing things they have never done before.  They go to the jewelry store and spend ten dollars getting a prize from a box of Cracker Jacks engraved.  This fun scene leads to the pair’s first kiss – one of the first times Holly’s vulnerability almost leads her to a “home.”

        The film inspired women to pack their bags and seek fortunes in New York City all over the country.  After the novel and the film were both released, Holly Golightly

took her place as an American fictional icon.  Capote himself said that she was always his favorite character in his novels because of her personality and her beautiful emotional confusion throughout the story.  

        This movie is a great story of human nature, overcoming adversity, and is a very human portrait of the post-WWII era American woman. Holly is not a perfect person, but because her flaws are bared for all to see, she is a much more identifiable and loveable character. Capote's masterwork that started it all would be a grave omission from any collection of literature about women.  Breakfast at Tiffany’s is truly a timeless tale that people from all different generations can watch over and over.