Breakfast at Tiffany's and the rise of the Women's Movement in the 1960s

Question for Discussion: How does Holly Golightly
in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) represent a
young woman rebelling against women's
traditional roles in the 1950s?

Reading: Quart and Auster, pp. 67-75;
The Good HouseWife: excerpt from a
1950's Home Economics Textbook ;
Betty Friedan, "The Feminine Mystique: The Problem
that has no Name"; Morgan, "Rights of Passage" ;
Chafe, "Social Change and the American Woman"

Video: Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961),
Women in the 1950s Documentary

Critical Reviews of Breakfast at Tiffany's

Breakfast at Tiffany's--Basic Information

Women in the 1950s and 1960s

Women's Rights In Recent American History

Let's look at a larger paradox in American society. Throughout its history, the United States has been forced to grant an increasing number of groups their basic rights and freedom as Americans. However, despite Americans' willingness to accept Blacks, immigrants, Catholics, Jews, and other historically excluded peoples greater rights and freedoms, Americans have been at the same time reluctant to grant women their full rights and freedoms as American citizens. Even today granting women equal rights in American society is a very controversial and divisive issue.

What is it about granting women equal rights that causes some American men and women to fear that American society, the family, and marriage will be undermined? Why do women still not have the same rights, freedoms, and opportunities as American men do? In order to answer these questions we need to look at the history and debate over the equal rights amendment, the ERA. Having been approved by Congress in 1972, the ERA was soon ratified by more than 30 states, but the closer it came to being passed as a Constitutional amendment by the states, the larger and more vocal its men and women opponents became. By 1982, the ERA was defeated, having failed to pass the states, and women still do not have equal rights under the law in the United States.
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What did the ERA say? (See EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT site.)

EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT

Alice Paul, 1921

Section 1. Equality of Rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any state on account of sex.

Section 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Section 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

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The Equal Rights Amendment was written in 1921 by suffragist Alice Paul. It has been introduced in Congress every session since 1923. It passed Congress in 1972, but failed to be ratified by the necessary thirty-eight states by the July 1982 deadline. It was ratified by thirty-five states.

For an excellent history and series of document on the women's movement after World War II, see The Feminist Chronicles 1953 - 1993 . The ERA was first introduced in Congress in 1923, but still to this day it has failed to become law. Let's look at the nature and history of the debate over the ERA to try to determine why it is so controversial.

As a result of political pressure from the Civil Rights movement, Congress passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It committed the federal government to protect and ensure the civil and political rights of Blacks and women from discrimination. It would appear that the Civil Rights Act was both a victory for both Blacks and women, whose civil rights the federal government was now committed to protect. But, in fact, it was only really a victory for Blacks. During the debate over the Civil Rights Act, Southern Congressmen included women in the Act hoping that enough Northern and Western Congressmen would refuse to support it; Southern politicians hoped that Congress would refuse to pass a law protecting women's civil rights. Indeed, this demonstrates that for many protecting American women's civil rights was even more controversial and divisive than protecting Black's civil rights. But, in the end, the 1964 Civil Rights Act passed despite the fact that it would now force to federal government to also protect women's civil rights.

Many opponents of the ERA argue that it is not needed because women are included in the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But, in fact, in 1965 and 1966 the federal government and the courts refused to enforce the Civil Rights Act's protection of women, arguing that it was a "fluke" and that Congress had not really intended to include women in the law. Despite the fact that women were included in the law, the government refused to protect women's civil rights. This refusal outraged the leaders of the women's movement. They felt that once again women were going to lose out to Blacks, who were granted full citizenship and the right to vote after the Civil War, while women were told to wait, that there time would come soon. It seemed that once again the government was telling women to wait, that it would now protect Black's civil rights but not women's. As a result of the government's refusal to enforce the laws protecting women's civil rights, the leaders of the women's movement got together and formed the National Organization for Women (NOW) in 1966. NOW's major goal was to force the government to enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

But by the late 1960s, the leaders of NOW decided that enforcing the Civil Rights laws were not enough. They concluded only a Constitutional amendment that once and for all included women as full citizens under the law would guarantee women equal rights and freedoms in the United States. State and federal governments had already proven that they would find ways out of enforcing lesser legal protections for women's rights. In fact, some critics of the ERA argue that it is not needed because women were included in the 14th amendment's guarantee of equal rights under the law to "all person born and naturalized in the United States." But, as we have seen, the Supreme Court on a number of occasions has ruled that the 14th amendment's protections did not include women. Supporters argued that only the Equal Rights amendment would force American government and society to finally recognize women as persons and full citizens under the law.

Let's look at NOW's "Declaration of Purpose" in 1966 to better understand the goals of the women's movement and supporters of the ERA. (See The History of the National Organization for Women .)

What was it about the demands of NOW and the growing women's movement in the 1960s and 1970s that caused the growth of a committed and powerful "Stop ERA" campaign and an anti-feminist backlash by the 1970s and 1980s? In order to understand the growing opposition to the ERA and the women's movement by conservative men and women and by powerful Christian organizations, we need to look at the growth of the "Religious Right" and the "conservative Right" in America since the 1950s. See Historical Background of the Religious Right site for a general history of the growth of the conservative movement after World War II. In order to understand the rise of the the Religious Right in the 1970s and 1980s, see The Religious Right Of The '6Os And '7Os and The Religious Right Of The '8Os and '9Os internet sites. For a good historical overview of the rise and growing power and influence of Religious conservatism in American society and politics since 1960s, see the With God on Our Side site. Finally to get a look at the political and religious views of some of the major Christian groups that helped defeat the ERA, see The Christian Coalition Home Page and The Eagle Forum Home Page . With the defeat of the ERA in 1982, many religious and political conservatives went on to try to roll back some of the victories of the women's movement in the 1960s and 1970s. What is it about women's full social, economic, and political equality with men that caused conservative American men and women to fight so hard against equality for women?

Let's look at an excellent summary essay, "Women against Feminism," by Rebecca Klatch to understand the rise of the conservative opposition to the women's movement. Klatch begins her argument by equating feminism and the women's movement with the social and moral decay caused by the 1960s. The implication is that feminist, civil rights, student, anti-war, and other political movements of the 1960s damaged American society. But how did the women's movement damage America? Klatch charges that feminism was in fact an ideological attack on the family that has caused the decline of the family and "family values" in the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. Along with the other radical changes in the 1960s, she argues, feminism helped cause the "internal erosion of the moral bases supporting family life, particularly with the rising divorce rate and increased number of working mothers."

Klatch, like other religious and political conservatives, argues that many of the major social problems that faced the United States in the 1970s and 1980s were caused by the women's movement and its moral and political campaign against the family. Anti-feminists charge that rising divorce rates, drug-use, the breakdown in families, youth violence, homosexuality, and growing poverty among women and children are all caused by feminism and so-called "women's liberation." But how does this work? Aren't these problems symptoms of larger social and political crises facing American society? How can feminism possibly be responsible for all these growing problems?

Klatch argues that in demanding social, economic, and political equality for women, feminists have undermined women's traditional roles in American society. Women's traditional roles of wife and mother, many conservatives believe, is the glue that holds the family and the larger society together. If women give up these roles and try to "become like men," Klatch argues, then society and the family will break down. She writes:

"When individuality and freedom of self extend to women as well as to men, marriage, the family, and society itself are threatened....Feminism is a threat, then, because when women pursue self-interest, not only is the family neglected but also ultimately women become like men. Hence, "macho feminism" is destructive because if everyone pursues their own interest, no one is left to look out for the larger good, that is, to be altruistic, to be the nurturer, the caretaker, the mother. In short, the underlying fear expressed by this critique of feminism is the fear of a a total masculinization of the world."

By demanding to have the same rights and freedoms as men, Klatch argues that feminism is anti-family, selfish, and narcissistic. Her underlying assumption is that only women can care for, support, and nurture the family and society. If women give up their roles as wives and mothers and try to become like men, then the family, marriage, and society will not work. But what about men? Why can't both men and women care for, support, and nurture the family and society?

Anti-feminists argue that American society can't afford to grant women equality with men. Women need to continue to be granted protection and "special rights" if they are expected to carry out their roles as wives and mothers. Klatch now reveals the anti-men assumptions held by the anti-feminist movement:

"The underlying image of men is of creatures with uncontrollable passions and little sense of commitment or loyalty. Only moral and legal authority can restrain the savagery of male nature....Thus, when feminists remove the safety valves that currently exist to protect women, they leave homemakers particularly vulnerable to men."

Only if men are forced to support and protect their wives and children will men accept their responsibilities. By threatening the rights of women to be supported and protected by men, Klatch argues the ERA threatens to undermine women's traditional roles and undermine the American family.

But if men are moral monsters, as Klatch argues, then why should women allow men to dominate their lives and rule the family? Shouldn't women be trusted with the authority to run the family if men are so morally irresponsible? Here, the anti-feminists make an amazing move. They argue that women are, in fact, "the real power behind the throne." Despite what men think, women only pretend to accept men's authority and domination; women are really in control. Phyllis Schlafly, the leader of the "Stop ERA" movement, argues:

"The Positive Woman accepts her responsibility to spin the fabric of civilization, to mend its tears, and to reinforce its seams....God has a mission for every Positive Woman. It is up to her to find out what it is and to meet the challenge."

Thus, the ERA must be defeated because it threatens women's traditional God-given role of wife and mother. If women don't accept their traditional roles, Klatch concludes, then the family, marriage, and society will not work.

Even though the majority of American women and men supported the ERA and equality for women, there were enough conservative men and women to defeat the ERA and derail the women's movement. Just as in the past, Americans were reluctant to give up their traditional belief in two separate and distinct roles for men and women. Supporters of this "women's sphere" argued that women must not demand the same rights and freedoms as men because if they didn't carry out their traditional roles and responsibilities the American family and society would break down. Basically, their argument is that the strength of American society lies in the family, and anything that threatens the family threatens America.

Faced with the growing power of the Religious Right in the 1980s and 1990s, the women's movement was forced to retreat and protect the victories they had already won. In fact, some conservatives in the early 1990s were calling supporters of feminism "feminazis." Women and feminists have become useful scapegoats for conservatives who want to blame America's social and economic decline since the 1970s on the 1960s and the women's movement attack on "family values." The challenge facing women today is how to convince Americans that granting women political, economic, and social equality with men will help the family and will help America solve some of the major problems and crises it faces. Until feminists can do this, many Americans will continue to believe that America cannot afford to grant women equal rights. And the contradiction remains: America can grant Blacks, immigrants, and other minorities greater rights, but it can't seem to grant women equal rights. Equal rights for women continue to be more controversial and politically unacceptable than equal rights for racial minorities. This is one of the larger contradiction that grew out of the civil rights and women's movement of the 1960s.

Friedan, "The Problem that Has No Name"

"The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night--she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question--"Is this all?"

"They learned that truly feminine women do not want careers, higher education, political rights--the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for. Some women, in their forties and fifties, still remembered painfully giving up those dreams, but most of the younger women no longer even thought about them. A thousand expert voices applauded their femininity, their adjustment, their new maturity. All they had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children."

"The suburban housewife--she was the dream image of the young American women and the envy, it was said, of women all over the world. The American housewife--freed by science and labor-saving appliances from the drudgery, the dangers of childbirth and the illnesses of her grandmother. She was healthy, beautiful, educated, concerned only about her husband, her children, her home. She had found true feminine fulfillment. As a housewife and mother, she was respected as a full and equal partner to man in his world. She was free to choose automobiles, clothes, appliances, supermarkets; she had everything that women ever dreamed of."

"In the fifteen years after World War II, this mystique of feminine fulfillment became the cherished and self-perpetuating core of contemporary American culture. Millions of women lived their lives in the image of those pretty pictures of the American suburban housewife, kissing their husbands goodbye in front of the picture window, depositing their stationwagonsful of children at school, and smiling as they ran the new electric waxer over the spotless kitchen floor. They baked their own bread, sewed their own and their children's clothes, kept their new washing machines and dryers running all day. They changed the sheets on the beds twice a week instead of once, took the rughoolag class in adult education, and pitied their poor frustrated mothers, who had dreamed of having a career. Their only dream was to be perfect wives and mothers; their highest ambition to have five children and a beautiful house, their only fight to get and keep their husbands. They had no thought for the unfeminine problems of the world outside the home; they wanted the men to make the major decisions. They gloried in their role as women, and wrote proudly on the census blank: "Occupation: housewife."

"If a woman had a problem in the 1950's and 1960's, she knew that something must be wrong with her marriage, or with herself. Other women were satisfied with their lives, she thought. What kind of a woman was she if she did not feel this mysterious fulfillment waxing the kitchen floor? She was so ashamed to admit her dissatisfaction that she never knew how many other women shared it. If she tried to tell her husband, he didn't understand what she was talking about. She did not really understand it herself."

"Of the growing thousands of women currently getting private psychiatric help in the United States, the married ones were reported dissatisfied with their marriages, the unmarried ones suffering from anxiety and, finally, depression. Strangely, a number of psychiatrists stated that, in their experience, unmarried women patients were happier than married ones. So the door of all those pretty suburban houses opened a crack to permit a glimpse of uncounted thousands of American housewives who suffered alone from a problem that suddenly everyone was talking about, and beginning to take for granted, as one of those unreal problems in American life that can never be solved-like the hydrogen bomb. By 1962 the plight of the trapped American housewife had become a national parlor game. Whole issues of magazines, newspaper columns, books learned and frivolous, educational conferences and television panels were devoted to the problem."

"Can the problem that has no name be somehow related to the domestic routine of the housewife? When a woman tries to put the problem into words, she often merely describes the daily life she leads. What is there in this recital of comfortable domestic detail that could possibly cause such a feeling of desperation? Is she trapped simply by the enormous demands of her role as modern housewife: wife, mistress, mother, nurse, consumer, cook, chauffeur, expert on interior decoration child care, appliance repair, furniture refinishing, nutrition, and education? Her day is fragmented as she rushes from dishwasher to washing machine to telephone to dryer to station wagon to supermarket, and delivers Johnny to the Little League field, takes Janey to dancing class, gets the lawnmower fixed and meets the 6:45. She can never spend more than 15 minutes on any one thing; she has no time to read books, only magazines; even if she had time, she has lost the power to concentrate. At the end of the day, she is so terribly tired that sometimes her husband has to take over and put the children to bed."

If I am right, the problem that has no name stirring in the minds of so many American women today is not a matter of loss of femininity or too much education, or the demands of domesticity. It is far more important than anyone recognizes. It is the key to these other new and old problems which have been torturing women and their husbands and children, and puzzling their doctors and educators for years. It may well be the key to our future as a nation and a culture. We can no longer ignore that voice within women that says: "I want something more than my husband and my children and my home."

Morgan, "Rights of Passage"

"They said we were "anti-housewife," though many of us were housewives, and it was not us, but society itself, as structured by men, which had contempt for life-sustenance tasks. Today, too many housewives are in open participation in the Women's Movement to be ignored—and many are talking of a housewives' union. (Not to speak of the phenomenon of "runaway wives," as the news media calls them in articles which puzzle over the "motivation" of women who simply have picked up one dirty sock too many from the living-room floor.)

They said we were "a lesbian plot," and the carefully implanted and fostered bigotry of many heterosexual feminists rose eagerly, destructively, to deny that, thereby driving many lesbian women out of the Movement, back into the arms of their gay "brothers".... Yet despite the temptation to fall into such traps of "non-thought," the growth does continue and the motion cannot be stopped. There is no turning back. "

"I call myself a radical feminist, and that means specific things to, me. The etymology of the word "radical" refers to "one who goes to the root." I believe that sexism is the root oppression, the one which, until and unless we uproot it, will continue to put forth the branches of racism, war, class hatred, ageism, competition, ecological disaster, and economic exploitation. This means, to me, that all the so-called revolutions to date have been coups d'etat between men, in a halfhearted attempt to prune the branches but leave the root embedded—for the sake of preserving their own male privileges. Yet this also means that I'm not out for us as women to settle for a "piece of the pie," equality in an unjust society, or for mere "top-down" change which can be corrupted into leaving the basic system unaltered.'I think our feminist revolution gains momentum from a "ripple effect"—from each individual woman gaining self-respect and yes, power, over her own body and soul first, then within her family, on her block, in her town, state, and so on out from the center, overlapping with similar changes other women are experiencing, the circles rippling more widely and inclusively as they go. This is a revolution in consciousness, rising expectations, and the actions which reflect that organic process."

"I want to say to that woman: we've only just begun, and there's no stopping us. I want to tell her that she is maturing and stretching and daring and yes, succeeding, in ways undreamt until now. She will survive the naysayers, male and female, and she will coalesce in all her wondrously various forms and diverse lifestyles, ages, races, classes, and internationalities into one harmonious blessing on this agonized world. She is so very beautiful, and I love her. The face in the mirror is myself.

And the face in the mirror is you."

Chafe, "Social Change and the American Woman"

"The staying power of traditional values received vigorous confirmation in the postwar years. Despite effusive expressions of gratitude for women's contribution to the war effort, many Americans. believed that women should return to their rightful place in the home as soon as the war had ended. In one of the most popular treatises of the postwar years, Ferdinand Lundberg and Marynia Farnham argued that female employment was a feminist conspiracy to seduce women into betraying their biological destiny. The independent woman, they claimed, was a "contradiction in terms." Women were born to be soft, nurturant, and dependent on men; motherhood represented the true goal of female life. Sounding the same theme, Agnes Meyer wrote in the Atlantic that though women had many careers, "they have only one vocation—motherhood." The task of modern women, she concluded, was to "boldly announce that no job is more exacting, more necessary, or more re-warding than that of housewife and mother." Most Americans seemed to agree. A series of public opinion polls taken in the post-war years showed that a large majority of people continued to subscribe to the idea of a sharp division of labor between the sexes, with husbands making the "big" decisions and wives caring for the home."

"As observers noted at the time, women had discovered something new about themselves in the course of the war, and many were unwilling to give up that discovery just because the war had ended. Although most of the women workers viewed their employment as temporary when the war began, a Women's Bureau survey disclosed that by war's end, 75 percent wished to remain in the labor force."

"The second reason for the persistence of traditional attitudes was that women's employment expanded under conditions which emphasized women's role as "helpmates." The continued entry of women into the labor force was directly related to skyrocketing inflation and the pent-up desire of millions of families to achieve a higher living standard. In many instances, husbands and wives could not build new homes, buy new appliances, or purchase new cars on one income alone, and the impulse not to be left behind in the race for affluence offered a convenient rationale for women to remain in the labor force. Men who might oppose in theory the idea of married women holding jobs were willing to have their own wives go to work to help the family achieve its middle-class aspirations. But under such circumstances, the wife who held a job was playing a supportive role, not striking out on her own as an " independent " woman."

"All that was required to complete the process was the development of an appropriate context, and in the early 1960s that context began to emerge. After eight years of consolidation and consensus in national politics during the Eisenhower administration, a new mood of criticism and reform started to surface in the nation. Sparked by the demands of black Americans for full equality, public leaders focused new attention on a whole variety of problems which had been festering for years. Poverty, racial injustice, and sex discrimination had a lengthy history in America, but awareness of them crystallized in a climate which emphasized the need for activism to eradicate the nation's ills. Once the process of protest had begun, it generated a momentum of its own, spreading to groups which previously had been quiescent.

"Again, the experience of women dramatized the process of change. Just as World War II had served as a catalyst to behavioral change among women, the ferment of the sixties served as a catalyst to ideological change. The first major sign of the impending drive for women's liberation appeared with the publication in 1963 of Betty Friedan ' s bestselling The Feminine Mystique. Writing with eloquence and passion, Friedan traced the origins of women's oppression to a social system which persistently denied women the opportunity to develop their talents as individual human beings. "The core of the problem of women today," she wrote, "is not sexual but a problem of identity—a stunting or evasion of growth...." Friedan pointed out that while men had abundant opportunities to test their mettle, women saw their entire lives circumscribed by the condition of their birth and were told repeatedly "that they could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity." If a woman had aspirations for a career, she was urged instead to find a full measure of satisfaction in the role of housewife and mother. Magazines insisted that there was no other route to happiness; consumer industries glorified her life as homemaker; and psychologists warned her that if she left her position in the home, the whole society would be endangered. The result was that she was imprisoned in a "comfortable concentration camp," prevented from discovering who she really was by a society which told her only what she could be. Although Friedan's assessment contained little that had not been said before by other feminists, her book spoke to millions of women in a fresh way, driving home the message , that what had previously been perceived as only a personal problem was in fact a woman problem, shared by others and rooted in a set of social attitudes that required change if a better life was to be achieved."

"A second—and equally important—influence feeding the woman's movement came from the burgeoning drive for civil rights. Although it was true that blacks and women had strikingly different problems, they suffered from modes of oppression which in some ways were similar. For women as well as blacks, the denial of equality occurred through the assignment of separate and unequal roles. Both were taught to "keep their place," and were excluded from social and economic opportunities on the grounds that assertive behavior was deviant. The principal theme of the civil rights movement was the immorality of treating any human being as less equal than another on the basis of a physical characteristic, and that theme spoke as much to the condition of women as to that of blacks. In its tactics, its message, and its moral fervor, the civil rights movement provided inspiration and an organizational model for the activities of women."

"Perhaps the most important precondition for the revival of feminism, however, was the amount of change which had already occurred in women's lives. As long as the overwhelming majority of women remained in the home, there was no frame of reference from which to question the status quo. Woman's "place " was a fact as well as an idea. With the changes which began in World War II, on the other hand, reality ceased to conform to attitudes. The march of events had already delivered a fatal blow to conventional 'ideas on womans place, thereby creating a condition which made feminist arguments both timely and relevant. The experience of some change gave millions of women the perspective which allowed them to hear the feminists call for more change. Thus if the women who took jobs during the forties did not themselves mount an ideological assault on the status quo, they prepared a foundation which enabled the subsequent generation to take up the battle for a change in attitudes and ideas. "

"It's not always easy being a hustler.
The work is not particularly demanding,
especially if you have any acting talent.
But something about it sets you apart
from everyone else and makes it
difficult to relate normally with anyone,
especially with another hustler. That is
the premise behind Breakfast at Tiffany's
- as well the film's strength, insofar as
the story is honest with itself."
Stephen Brophy

"If I do not know who I am, it is because
I think I am the sort of person everyone
around me wants [me] to be. Perhaps I
have never asked myself whether I really
wanted to become what everybody else
seems to want [me] to become. Perhaps
if I only realized that I do not admire
what everyone seems to admire, I would
really begin to live after all. I would be
liberated from the painful duty of saying
what I really do not think and of acting
in a way that betrays...the integrity of
my own soul." (126)
....Thomas Merton, from No Man is
an Island

Holly: He's alright! Aren't you, cat? Poor
cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a
name! The way I see it I haven't got the
right to give him one. We don't belong
to each other. We just took up one day
by the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a place where me and things
go together. I'm not sure where that is
but I know what it is like. It's like
Tiffany's.

Paul: Tiffany's? You mean the jewelry
store.

Holly: That's right. I'm just CRAZY
about Tiffany's!

Paul: You know what's wrong with you,
Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick
out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a
fact, people do fall in love, people do
belong to each other, because that's
the only chance anybody's got for real
happiness." You call yourself a free
spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage.
Well baby, you're already in that cage.
You built it yourself. And it's not
bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas,
or in the east by Somali-land. It's
wherever you go. Because no matter
where you run, you just end up
running into yourself."

1. What does O. J. Berman mean when he tells Paul
that Holly is a phony, but she's a "real phony"?

2. How do Holly and Paul make a living and support
themselves? Does this affect the audiences' sympathy
for them?

3. Do you agree with James Berardinelli that
Breakfast at Tiffany's "is still first and foremost a
fantasy....This is not the real world; it's another sort
of place"?

4. What does Holly mean when she calls people
"Rats"and "Super Rats"?

5. How does this Holly Golightly quote help us
understand the larger theme of the movie:

Holly: He's alright! Aren't you, cat? Poor cat! Poor
slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I
haven't got the right to give him one. We don't
belong to each other. We just took up one day by
the river. I don't want to own anything until I find a
place where me and things go together. I'm not sure
where that is but I know what it is like. It's like Tiffany's.

Paul: Tiffany's? You mean the jewelry store.

Holly: That's right. I'm just CRAZY about Tiffany's!

6. What does Holly Golightly mean when she tells
Doc Barnes, "I'm not Lulamae Barnes anymore"?

7. What does Holly mean when she tells Doc
Barnes that she is a wild thing that can't be tamed?

8. How does the song Moon River ( Music and Lyrics) help
us better understand the larger underlying theme
in Breakfast at Tiffany's?

9. What does Paul mean when he says to Holly: "I love
you...you belong to me"? Is Holly right when she
responds, "No--people don't belong to people. I'm not
going to let anyone put me in a cage"?

10. Do you agree with Paul when that Holly--despite
her efforts to prevent it--is stuck in a cage of her own making:

Paul Varjak: "You know what's wrong with you,
Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got
no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and
say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people
do belong to each other, because that's the only
chance anybody's got for real happiness." You
call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're
terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well
baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself.
And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or
in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go.
Because no matter where you run, you just end up
running into yourself."

12. Why does Holly decide to re-unite with Paul
rather than escape to Brazil?

13. What does Susan Douglas mean when she
writes:

"I wanted Holly to be able to stay Holly and keep
Peppard (Paul). The final scene, in which Holly
finds her cat...and kisses Paul in a teeming
downpour, is ambiguous. Do I cry every time
because she's found Cat and Paul, or because
she's lost Holly?"

14. Do you think Holly and Paul can escape the
traps of marriage that tend to put people in cages?