{"id":8182,"date":"2017-03-24T05:48:57","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T10:48:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hilbertthm90.wordpress.com\/?p=8182"},"modified":"2022-06-21T12:27:24","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T17:27:24","slug":"year-of-short-fiction-part-4-breakfast-at-tiffanys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/03\/year-of-short-fiction-part-4-breakfast-at-tiffanys\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secret of Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s: A Quick Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/34D5zuO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Breakfast at Tiffany&#039;s (opens in a new tab)\">Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s<\/a><\/em> is one of those weird cultural staples that literally everyone has heard of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"the-cultural-phenomenon\">The Cultural Phenomenon<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Most people over a certain age have probably seen the movie, but ask them what it&#8217;s about, and they probably have no idea. It&#8217;s kind of fascinating to think how a novella\/film gets to such a point. I can&#8217;t even think of another cultural phenomenon of this type.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/34D5zuO\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/41HIPOHtSeL._SX324_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg?resize=245%2C374&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"breakfast at tiffany's capote\" width=\"245\" height=\"374\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>I was pretty excited going into this for a few reasons. I, too, had seen the movie enough years ago to not remember it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Oh, there&#8217;s the long cigarette <\/li><li>and a crazy cat<\/li><li>and a wacky party girl<\/li><li>and singing &#8220;Moon River&#8221; <\/li><li>But what was it&nbsp;<em>about<\/em>? <\/li><li>What was the plot? <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The other reason I was excited was that Truman Capote&#8217;s&nbsp;<em>In Cold Blood<\/em> is one of two books that has ever made me cry. The way he writes is breathtaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"pushing-boundaries\">Pushing Boundaries<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The first thing to jump out at me was the vulgarity of the language. It was published in 1958, so we&#8217;ve moved past short fiction that hides indiscretions (see below for other analyses). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I still must imagine this novella pushed what was acceptable for the time. It openly talks about prostitution and homosexuality and a 14-year-old girl getting married to an adult man. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Plus, Holly&#8217;s language is very direct and crude (I don&#8217;t recall if she swears, though).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Lolita<\/em> came out a few years before&nbsp;<em>Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s<\/em>, and&nbsp;<em>Tiffany&#8217;s<\/em> doesn&#8217;t compare in disturbing imagery to that. So I guess I shouldn&#8217;t have been too surprised. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It had more to do with tone than imagery, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"character-development\">Character Development<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The novella is basically a long character study, and it does an excellent job at this. Holly has to be one of the strangest characters of all time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Capote&#8217;s attention to detail is incredible. Almost every sentence that has Holly in it is crafted to expose some tiny piece of how her mind works. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An early example is that the location on her business card is: traveling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At first, it comes off as chaos. Nothing about the character makes sense, and the sentences she speaks come out in a stream-of-consciousness level of confusion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But then, by about halfway or so, she&#8217;ll do something weird, and you find yourself thinking:&nbsp;<em>that&#8217;s so Holly.<\/em> There appears to be a deep internal logic to it. Holly feels very real and knowable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"plot-and-theme\">Plot and Theme<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>The plot itself is fairly melodramatic. It goes by at rapid-fire pace. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This short novella has Holly being in love with and engaged to several people. She travels to probably a dozen places, often not even in the U.S. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are parties. She&#8217;s involved with a scheme to smuggle drugs orchestrated by a man in prison. She gets pregnant and miscarries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It&#8217;s almost impossible to take stock of all that happens in this, and there&#8217;s almost no real emotion behind any of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Capote clearly did this on purpose. Holly&#8217;s character is flighty, and she often jumps into things without any thought. If we think of the novella as a character study, then all these crazy events occurring is part of the brilliance of the novella. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plot doesn&#8217;t have weight for the main character, so it would be a mistake to have the events play a significant role to the reader. Holly moves on, and so should the reader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What does Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Holly is terrified, unhappy, or furious, the concept of Tiffany&#8217;s, its perfection in her mind, and the brand helps her feel better. Tiffany&#8217;s is enticing to her because she believes that only nice things happen there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"significance-of-breakfast-at-tiffany-s\">Significance of Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>And now we come full circle. No one remembers the plot to&nbsp;<em>Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s<\/em> by design. We&#8217;re only meant to remember Holly. Even her last name is &#8220;Golightly.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The only moments of emotional poignancy are when the narrator reflects on it all, and when we see beneath Holly&#8217;s shell. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He falls in love with Holly for real (this is a bit of a theme to the book: what is love?). This is quite well done because it contrasts so starkly with Holly&#8217;s indifference and shows how devastating her indifference can be as she tears through people&#8217;s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Capote gives Holly one piece of depth that prevents her from being some caricature of a socialite. She cares deeply about her brother, and it is probably the only real human connection she&#8217;s ever had. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A lot of her carefree attitude stems from a disturbing fact dropped subtly in tiny details. She runs from human connection because of the psychological trauma of being a child bride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Overall, the novella was way better than I expected in terms of character development. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was also sort of disappointing in a way. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I went in expecting it to be a romance between the narrator and Holly done in a brilliant literary Capote-esque way. It&#8217;s not that at all. But once you get over the initial shock (and genre confusion), it&#8217;s brilliant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"other-short-fiction-articles\">Other Short Fiction Articles:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/01\/year-of-short-fiction-part-1-daisy-miller\/\" target=\"_blank\">Daisy Miller<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/01\/year-of-short-fiction-part-2-the-awakening\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Awakening<\/a><\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/02\/year-of-short-fiction-part-3-the-red-pony\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\" (opens in a new tab)\">The Red Pony<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"Year (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/04\/year-of-short-fiction-part-5-the-call-of-cthulhu\/\" target=\"_blank\">The Call of Cthulhu<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"years (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/06\/year-of-short-fiction-part-6-cosmicomics\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cosmicomics<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"year (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/07\/year-of-short-fiction-part-7-interpreter-of-maladies\/\" target=\"_blank\">Interpreter of Maladies<\/a><\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"year (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/09\/year-of-short-fiction-part-8-tenth-of-december\/\" target=\"_blank\">Tenth of December<\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s is one of those weird cultural staples that literally everyone has heard of it. The Cultural Phenomenon Most people over a certain age have probably seen the movie, but ask them what it&#8217;s about, and they probably have no idea. It&#8217;s kind of fascinating to think how a novella\/film gets to such &#8230; <a title=\"The Secret of Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s: A Quick Analysis\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/2017\/03\/year-of-short-fiction-part-4-breakfast-at-tiffanys\/\" aria-label=\"More on The Secret of Breakfast at Tiffany&#8217;s: A Quick Analysis\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/amindformadness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/breakfast-at-tiffanys.jpg?fit=1200%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8182"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12055,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8182\/revisions\/12055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amindformadness.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}