Kristine's Shelf of Knowledge

Breakfast at Tiffany's (1- 60)



In Truman Capote's' short story A Breakfast at Tiffany's is a charming yet heart wrenching tale of a mysterious woman whom infamous in American history Miss Holiday Golightly. The first page of the novel had the most impact on me because he talks about his home.

"I am always drawn back to the places where I have lived, the houses and
their neighborhoods. For instance there is a brownstone in the East
Seventies where, during the early years of the war, I had my first New York
apartment. It was one room crowded with attic furniture,a sofa and fat chair
upholstered in that itchy, particular red velvet that associates with one hot day
on a train. The walls were stucco, and a color rather like tobacco spit.[...]
The single window looked out on the fire escape. Even so, my spirits heightened
whenever i felt in my pocket the key to this apartment; with all its gloom, it
still was a place of my own, the first, and my books were there, and jars of the
pencils to sharpen, everything I needed, so i felt, to become a writer I wanted
to be."(1)

This is one of my favorite parts of the novel because the narrator has such aspirations for his new and free life before Miss. Golightly enters his life. Also he talks about what many of people have or will experience which is living on their own and figuring out there life. He also keeps this apartment his real image of home because it is were he grew up, figured out what he wants to do with his life and where he fell in love. I can relate to the narrator because its hard to know what home is. Is it perhaps where you spent your days as a carefree child laughing at the sun or where you realized that the world is changing and all you can do is try to make your mark? I believe that is when you know when that all you can do is live and love and try to make it on your own. I can relate when I moved to a charter school to a public school and I knew that I was just a name and I had to make sure that people know my name and what I can do.

Capote, Truman Breakfast at Tiffany's Vintage Book, New York, 1993