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 women rebelling against women's
traditional roles in the 1950s?

Reading: The Good HouseWife: excerpt from a
1950's Home Economics Textbook ;Betty Friedan,
"The Feminine Mystique"; Chafe, "Social Change
and the American Woman", Morgan, "Rights of
Passage"

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

"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?