TRUMAN CAPOTE’S BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S

Thomas Fahy via Zoom

Much like Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958) tells the retrospective story of a captivating, enigmatic, and morally problematic figure through the eyes of a nostalgic narrator. Both novels depict postwar escapism and a narcissistic youth culture that rejects middle-class values through late-night parties, drinking, and sexual freedom. Although the narrator’s relationship with Holly takes place in the early 1940s, he tells her story in 1957, and this span enables Capote to give Holly broader cultural significance. His examination of female sexuality and homosexuality makes Breakfast at Tiffany’s a radical text for the time. Placing it in the context of the 1950s also provides a valuable counterpoint to the iconic film with Audrey Hepburn. Hepburn’s Holly never strays far from middle-class values. Her pursuit of wealthy men is motivated by a desire to care for her brother, and her decision to accept her love for the narrator—to see marriage as a romantic possibility not a cage—reinforces the very messages that Capote set out to question.

LINK TO NOVEL: Breakfast at Tiffany’s

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