Line #17 Literature/BreakfastAtTiffanys


1	[[quoteright:292:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/breakfast_at_tiffanys_book.jpg]]
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3	''Breakfast at Tiffany's'' is a 1958 novella by Creator/TrumanCapote.
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5	Set in [[BigApplesauce Manhattan]] in [[TheForties 1943-44]], and centering around a [[AuthorAvatar nameless writer's]] friendship with a bicurious, borderline HookerWithAHeartOfGold named Holly Golightly, the story is a touching meditation on the varying nature of love, and how people of disparate backgrounds can form unconventional family groups.
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7	The novella was loosely [[Film/BreakfastAtTiffanys adapted into a 1961 film]] starring Creator/AudreyHepburn.
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9	!!This novella provides examples of:
10	* TwentyMinutesIntoThePast: The novella was published in 1958 and is set in 1943-1944.
11	* AffectionateNickname: Holly calls the writer "Fred" after her brother. She stops calling him that after [[spoiler:she learns that her brother was killed in action overseas]] though.
12	* AmbiguouslyBi[=/=]AmbiguouslyGay: Neither "Fred" nor Holly have an explicitly defined sexual orientation, but Holly makes it clear that she's open to the possibility of relationships with women. The situation is murkier with the narrator, but his interest in Holly is just platonic, and since he's obviously an AuthorAvatar for Capote, who was very openly gay in RealLife, he's commonly interpreted as gay.
13	* ArtisticLicenseGeography: It's highly unlikely that the plane flying from Miami to Brazil will pass over the Andes. Granted, as it is Holly's words, it may just be a nod to her being BookDumb, but the narrator seems to go along with the idea.
14	* ArtisticLicenseHistory: There are some minor chronological discrepancies in the novella.
15	** At the party at Holly's the narrator notices the newspaper report on the premiere of ''Theatre/OneTouchOfVenus'', which took place on October 7, 1943. Yet the party took place on October 6, 1943 at the very latest (exactly a week after their first meeting, which happened on some evening in September 1943).
16	** At the same party, the narrator is asked if he saw ''The Story of Mr. Wassell'', a film released in 1944.
17	** Holly also quotes the song ''Maude, You're Rotten to the Core'', which was written in 1952.
18	* BlindWithoutEm: It's explained after the narrator gets to know Holly better that she constantly wears sunglasses because they're prescription and she can barely see a thing without them.
19	* BlitheSpirit: Holly.
20	* BookDumb: Holly is pretty smart, but almost entirely uneducated. Mag probably qualifies too.
21	* TheCapitalOfBrazilIsBuenosAires: [[AvertedTrope Averted]]. Holly writes to the narrator that "Brazil was beastly but Buenos Aires the best."
22	* ExplainExplainOhCrap: Holly [[spoiler:trying to justify throwing Cat into the rain in an alley and leaving him behind while she heads off to Rio; she stops mid-explanation and immediately goes back to find him. But she can't.]]
23	-->'''Holly:''' [[spoiler:Oh, Jesus God. We did belong to each other. He was mine. [...] I'm very scared, Buster. Yes, at last. Because it could go on forever. Not knowing what's yours until you've thrown it away.]]
24	* ForegoneConclusion: It's stated right off the bat that it had been years since the main character had ever seen or heard from Holly, and that she may well be somewhere in Africa at this point.
25	* ADogNamedDog: Holly's cat is named... Cat.
26	* FromStrayToPet: Holly has taken in a cat she found, however she refuses to name him because she insists he isn't her cat. When she does get him to leave, she regrets it a few minutes later but is unable to find him again. [[spoiler:He ends up adopted by someone else]].
27	* TheGhost: Fred, Holly's mentally handicapped brother who joined the army. [[spoiler: Eventually he's killed in action overseas.]]
28	* GratuitousFrench: Holly Golightly does this often, usually incorrectly; [[TruthInTelevision so did her creator, Truman Capote, and many of his society friends who wanted to seem more society than they were]].
29	* TheMafia: Holly ends up involved with the mafia, though she claims to be an unwitting accomplice.
30	* MeaningfulName: What better name than "Holiday Golightly" could there be for a free-spirited ditz with an unserious approach to life? Noted with her hanging a sign on her door whenever she was out, "Miss Holiday Golightly Traveling". Bonus points for the sign having been made at titular Tiffany's. And extra bonus points for the name Holiday - of which "Holly" is diminutive - being MeaningfulRename (her real name is Lulamae Barnes). [[spoiler: "Golightly", however, is ''not'' an example of MeaningfulRename - it is her ex-husband's last name.]]
31	* MostWritersAreWriters: Holly's unnamed friend is a writer.
32	* NoAntagonist: Everything that happens to Holly happens because she's Holly.
33	* NoNameGiven: The narrator.
34	* ObliviousToLove: Holly is this towards the narrator, but even moreso towards Joe Bell.
35	* PrecisionFStrike: Holly, when abandoning her cat. Doubly precise considering the meticulousness of Truman Capote's prose.
36	* ReallyGetsAround: Holly claims she's only had eleven lovers, excluding anything that happened before she was thirteen, and she's quite flirty throughout the story. Some of her friends have apparently had more.
37	* SexlessMarriage: Implied with Holly and Doc Golightly. It helps to lessen the squick of her marrying a man old enough to be her father.
38	* SlutShaming: Holly does a lot of this herself but also receives quite a bit. Her older neighbor Madame Spanells in particular dislikes Holly's lifestyle and partying.
39	* SpeechImpededLoveInterest: While not the protagonist's love interest, Mag invokes this with her pronounced stutter. She will exaggerate it, especially in front of men, when it benefits her. Apparently [[SexyFlaw the impediment makes her more appealing]].
40	* SpeechImpediment: Mag has a pronounced stutter that she sometimes exaggerates for her benefit.
41	* TitleDrop: "I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany's." Unlike in [[Film/BreakfastAtTiffanys the adaptation]], Holly never actually does, so the title alludes to an uttainable dream.
42	* WalkingTheEarth: Holly is a [[DownplayedTrope downplayed]] example. She really wants to settle down, but she just can't until she feels that the place is right, that she can belong there. New York is probably her closest equivalent of that place though, and she leaves it involuntarily.
43	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]. [[spoiler: In the very last sentences, we find out that Holly's cat found a new home]].

Context Literature / BreakfastAtTiffanys