Breakfast At Tiffanys

Breakfast At Tiffany’sBreakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote is about the thought that
friendship can make a person take drastic measures in helping a friend.

The setting is New York City. The point of view is first person limited.
Seen through the eyes of the narrator, called ?Fred? ( the main character ),
who is a starting writer. I enjoyed the story because it was very interesting
to learn and experience life in old New York.

The story starts out, probably in the present time, when ?Fred?, who
had now been living in New York for a great deal of time, goes into his
friend Joe Bell’s bar for a drink. There he learns the his long time friend,
Holly Golightly, is still alive by the use of a photograph from an explorer
which shows a wood carving made by a tribesman which bears the
uncanny resemblance to Holly. After this encounter, ?Fred? begins to
reminisce about his past with Holly and all of their wild adventures.
?Fred’s? first meeting with Holly was through his apartment window.

Holly Golightly is a nineteen year-old self-sufficient woman. Some of her
personality traits are admirable, affectionate, while cold hearted. She is
motivated in life by striving for her purpose in life, which is to be rich and
famous while keeping her ego. She believes that love is not sexual.
Holly, trying to escape a horrible date, decides to visit her new downstairs
neighbor. There she practically tells ?Fred? everything about her life. Fred
was a name Holly chose for ?Fred? because he looked like her brother
Fred, but since the point of view is first person, the narrator refers to
himself throughout the story as ?I?, but Holly generally refers to him as
?Fred?. In ?Fred’s? apartment, Holly tells ?Fred? about her involvement with
a imprisoned drug runner name Sally Tomato, a stock mobster character
who pays Holly to visit him. ?Fred? learns more about Holly’s friends when
he attends a party hosted by Holly. There he meets Rusty Trawler, Holly’s
current boyfriend, Mag Wildwood, a cunning southern bell from Arkansas
who would eventually steal away Holly’s boyfriend. ?Fred? realizes that
Holly’s friends are not the usual type of people that attend parties. Which
is described when Mag first enters the party and says in her southern
accent, You b-b-boys not vexed at me for butting in on your p-p-party.

Mag says this even though everybody knows she was attending. The tone
of the story is funny and sarcastic.
The action then abruptly changes when Holly, Mag, Rusty, and
Mag’s boyfriend, Jose` Ybarra-Jaegar, an eccentric Brazilian politician,
went on a trip to Brazil. There Mag steals Holly’s boyfriend, Rusty, and
Holly does the same with Mag’s boyfriend, Jose`. When they get back,
Holly is detected by her former husband. ?Fred? then learns that Holly’s
real name was Lulamae Barnes before she was married as a child bride to
a southerner named Doc Golightly. Also, over this period of time, Holly’s
involvement with Mag’s ex-boyfriend drives Mag away. This is a very
rough time for Holly. In order to ease the pain and pass the time, Holly
spend more and more time with ?Fred? drinking in Joe Bell’s bar. Joe Bell
is a shy bar owner who conceals his feeling about the rambunctious Holly.

Even though he is in love with her, Joe keeps his feelings hidden.
Everything is fine till one day after horse-back riding. After ?Fred? has a
sever accident, involving a horse and an abrupt trip downtown, Holly is
suddenly arrested for being involved in a drug triangle with Sally Tomato.
Apparently, Sally was using Holly to relay information from him to his drug
empire outside the prison walls. At this same moment ?Fred? finds out that
Jose` is leaving Holly and he has to tell her the news. The theme is
reinforced in these chapters by the way the narrator goes out of his way to
do things for his friend, Holly. They go horse back riding, even though
?Fred? is uneasy about riding. They also decide to steal masks from a
costume store.
After all of these horrible things happen to Holly, she decides to
break out of jail and move to Brazil. Even though ?Fred? knows she is
probably never coming back, he still has hope for Holly’s return. And he
shares that hope with Joe Bell at his bar. ?Fred? knows that he would
have done anything to keep his and Holly’s relationship strong. Which is
the theme of the story: friendship can make a person take drastic
measures in helping a friend. Holly Golightly was just a lost romantic. A
surreal person living in a real word. Dealing with real people and problems
in an unorthodox way. So, if you’re ever in Brazil and you happen to see
Holly, tell her that ?Fred? is doing fine.
Bibliography
The Cheez Is good
The Cheez is Wise
Book Reports