Truman Capote’s novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s displays a romantic and charming, yet anguishing and heartwrenching drama. The beauty and witty naiveté of Holly Golightly are balanced only by her extreme sadness. Capote’s Holly, inspired women in America to pack their bags and seek their fortune in New York as Holly Golightly took her place as an American fi ctional icon and Capote himself claimed Holly to be his favourite out of all the characters he had created. Holly was a new kind of heroine — a woman who was free in most ways that majority of the women at that time were not. Looking back at her past, we learn that she ran away from her marriage to Doc, and ran away from her binding past.
Holly, the stylish New York socialite, is a far cry from the domestic farm girl known by Doc as Lulamae Barnes. Thus, the novella tells us about a girl who tries to recreate herself, to change circumstances rather than accept them. This went on to serve as an inspiration to feminist activists of the 1960s who demanded similar emancipation. Holly is openly fl irtatious with men and seems unconcerned about modesty. She appears to have an extensive circle of male acquaintances, with whom her relationship is decidedly more than platonic. Towards the beginning of the novella, she shuts the door on a man with whom she has just returned home. He has given her $50 as a sign of his intentions, but at her door, Holly refuses the indignant suitor.
“I worship you, Mr Arbuck,” she says sincerely, “Good night.” He goes home angry, while Holly goes to sleep $50 richer. Out of the few things she really owns, one is her cat whom she refused to name as she did not consider it her own. She believed, “The way I see it I haven’t got the right to give him one. We don’t belong to each other. We just took up one day by the river. I don’t want to own anything until I fi nd a place where me and things go together.” But at the end of the novella, we see Holly realising that Cat was hers to keep as the narrator promises to fi nd it and take care of it. But by the end of the novella, there is no certainty that she ever fi nds what she is looking for.
Holly disappears, leaving only a postcard and rumours of a trip to Africa. In a sense, the novella poses questions without seeking to answer them. How can an individual reconcile longings for both freedom and security? What does it mean for a woman to fi nd happiness? In the end, these questions remain unanswered for Holly. She is a traveller who is in search of a place she can call home. Capote allows Holly to be banished by the force of her own hope. She is somewhere far away, still propelled by a wondrous, misguided optimism as she says, “Home is where you feel at home. I’m still looking.”
(The writer is a freelance journalist who spends her time eating, reading and sleeping, when not tackling deadlines)