Identity In Breakfast At Tiffany's

Holly continuously reinvents herself to feel welcome but all she manages to do is to further fragment herself as she struggles to find a true identity. “Although everything that occurs is focalized through his eyes, the narrative’s dominant sensibility clearly belongs to Holly.”(Scott 138). Despite the story being told through the narrator, Holly is the protagonist and the novel is more on her struggle than it is on the narrator's observations. Holly's ability to reinvent herself is her greatest strength and her biggest flaw. She has changed her on numerous occasions and is unable to remain “still” because attachment means commitment which in Holly's mind is the end of her freedom. A self described “wild thing”, Holly thrives on being alone

She isn’t a phony because she’s a real phony. She believes all this crap that she believes. You can’t talk her out of it.”(Capote 25). Holly goes as far to invent a character that even she believes, someone that will be “normal” and accepted by the high society that she craves to be. She needs to believe it more than anyone else, and goes through denial to pursue an existence that lacks meaning, relationships, and craves the hollowness of New York. “Indeed, Holly is the one character in Breakfast at Tiffany’s who actively pursues non-meaning”(Scott 138). To Holly, feeling is too difficult, too much work, and far too painful, so she turns to non-meaning, thinking that she always run from problems, whether that is moving to New York or changing her name. “Holly’s emptiness enables her to detach herself quite easily from her surroundings, to remain “travelling” at all times.”(Scott 140). Holly is always moving, never pondering or reflecting because that would renew the pain, the loss, the tragedy that she escaped. “She acknowledges how the past is always in the present”(Smith 2). Smith’s explanation of Holly’s attitude towards relationship is dead on as Holly refuses to forge any relationship with substance in fear that she might get