Kamala's Post

Kamala Randjelovic
Posting for Monday, December 10th, 2007

As I read Truman Capote’s, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I realized that the character Holly Golightly is representative of countless individuals who move to New York City in hopes of fulfilling their dreams. As I write this, there are people all over the world preparing to come to New York City to seek success in a myriad of ways. New York City is a beacon to many because it offers a unique freedom to its inhabitants. The physicality of the city; the small apartments combined with a vivid street life create an on going theatre which encourages, and allows its inhabitants to literally “cast” a role and act it out (if they so desire, and many do.) Due to its diversity of culture, New York also provides an illusion that one is constantly traveling –without departing the city. From one neighborhood to another – Chinatown to Little India in the East 20s for example, an individual can literally journey from China to India without leaving the city. In Breakfast At Tiffany’s, Holly can escape her past and create a new identity because she lives in New York City. Her sophisticated bearing (her looks and her diction) provide her entrée into the social circles of sophisticated and wealthy New Yorkers. At one point, “Fred” compares Holly to an old acquaintance of his; saying they both “….would never change because they had been given their character too soon, which like sudden riches lead to a lack of proportion” (55). Irregardless of the many people buzzing around her, Holly’s character is actually insatiable. Despite her many social connections, she remains empty –a person literally constructed in thin air. Without the backdrop of New York City, Holly would not exist. Her material gains; money, possessions and social connections do not connect her to others. It is the City that comforts Holly because it merely demands Holly’s presence. As Holly said; “I love New York, even though it isn’t mine, the way something has to be, a tree or a street or a house, something anyway, that belongs to me because I belong to it”(80). With New York City as her backdrop, Holly actually became someone.