Reading Response 2

 I have always been a fan of the film “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” however until yesterday I had not really done any sort of in depth reading of the story itself, written by Truman Capote. I was surprised at how different the two stories were and how that affected my view of the plot and each individual character. I felt as though I actually connected more with Holly, perhaps because her beauty is less of a manipulating distraction when one is simply reading words on a page. I felt I had more in common with Holly as she is represented in the book. I know people often do not like her character because she is admit manipulative, however I admire her ability to what she wants to do, regardless of others. While this is far from how I chose to live my own life, isn’t that the fun of fiction? You get to transform into someone else and burry yourself in his or her story for a period of time. I think it is also important when reading this story to remember when it was written, 1958. Which gender rolls are still heavily engrained in our culture, they were more pronounced in this time period and I think this story provides as an extremely interesting commentary on gender rolls as the author saw them. While Holly, the min character was spunky, and manipulative, indicating some sense of independence; she in actuality is the opposite of independent.  

One thing that really stood out to me more in the book than in the movie was the age of Holly. I felt as though her character was more successfully portrayed as eighteen years old in the book. In the narration you can sense a slight naïve character and fear in her actions, which added a complexity to Holly’s character that was not there during the movie. I enjoyed this complexity and it added to the storyline and the readers understanding of Holly’s motives. She exemplifies the idea of rich taste without the money to back it up, and I was fascinated by her strive to get what she wanted, regardless of how seemingly shallow that might have been. Her character echoes the gender roll of women in the 1950’s. She believed that the life she wished to live could not be attracted to her on her own but rather could be acquired through men’s attraction to her and her ability to seduce the rich. This is a complex character that both comments on gender as age as it related to personality and motivation. When reading this short story I was impressed by the language and flow. It was not difficult to get through and I felt this was an outcome of the characters being interesting and relatable and also the language flowing and each sentence leading flawlessly on to the next.