Breakfast At Tiffany's: Idolizing Holly

991 Words2 Pages

Allison Prusnofsky
Professor Bridges
English 1102
21 February 2015
Idolizing Holly
Young girls have idolized Holly Golightly, who is a character in Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, since the book was published. This is because she has made being lost seem almost glamorous. This protagonist has become so popular that just about all of Capote’s female friends in New York claimed to be the actual inspiration for the character. She has become such a widespread role model, but Holly is the last female fictional character any woman should seriously want to imitate in real life. The first reason women should avoid striving to be Holly, is that she has commitment issues. She will not even name her cat. She feels that by naming the cat, she's setting …show more content…

Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself” (Breakfast at Tiffany’s). She refuses to be put behind the bars of a committed relationship. Issues of permanence continue into her living situation. Holly always has her bags packed and ready to go in case she decides to pick up and leave. She wants to constantly be changing things up. This is shown when Holly says, “I'll never get used to anything. Anybody that does, they might as well be dead" (Capote 15). The idea of staying in one place is unfathomable to Holly. She believes life is about staying on the move and experiencing new opportunities. This woman will not stay in one place long enough to get used to it. Not being able to commit to anything, is not a quality that girls should attempt to acquire.
Next, Holly is a lost woman who has no sense of self-worth and puts on a fake facade of being someone trendier than she actually is. This is not an admirable characteristic. Holly cannot get through the simplest parts of the day without forgetting things or getting distracted. She uses others who are pleased by her to command them to do things for her, which is displayed when she says, “you could always tell what kind …show more content…

Women look up to this, but her life is sad, not cute. Brittany Allen states, “Holly Golightly, in fact – cannot afford cabs” (Allen 1). She bases her whole identity on the men in her life, defining who she is based on her wealthy fiancée, her connections with the narrator, and the many other rich men that she spends her time around. She schemes the day she can marry a man for his money and displays this when she states, “I'll tell you one thing, Fred, darling... I'd marry you for your money in a minute” (Breakfast at Tiffany’s). She is waiting on a knight in shining armor, but in a much gloomier way than most. One should sympathize with her and not aspire to be like

Open Document