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Summary

The novella begins with the narrator recounting how his inspiration to write about Holly Golightly came from a conversation he had with a neighborhood bar proprietor, Joe Bell. Calling the narrator over to his bar, Joe tells him that a former neighbor of the narrator’s, Mr. I. Y. Yunioshi, was traveling in Africa and took a picture of a man holding a sculpture of a head that looks like their mutual friend, Holly Golightly. Joe and the narrator discuss whether the sculpture could really be based on Holly and speculate on where she could be, noting how this is the only bit of possible news they’ve heard about her in many years. Walking back to his brownstone apartment, the narrator begins to reflect, in flashback, on how he first came to know Holly.

Back in the early 1940s, soon after moving into a New York City brownstone, the narrator sees a mailbox with a card that catches his eye. It reads, “Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling.” One night, the narrator is awakened by Mr. Yunioshi, who lives on the top floor, shouting down at Holly. He is angry because she has yet again rung his bell after midnight and asked to be buzzed into the building after forgetting her key. Holly is accompanied by an unpleasant man named Sid Arbuck, whom she thanks for walking her home but shuts out of her apartment (after forgetting his name). When Arbuck protests, Holly suggests he be less stingy the next time he pays for a woman’s company. 

Having exhausted Mr. Yunioshi’s patience, Holly takes to calling the narrator to buzz her in, although they have not yet formally met. The narrator recalls passing a palatial bird cage in an antique store window and fantasizing about owning it and filling it with parrots. As the summer progresses, the narrator becomes fixated on learning more about Holly, digging through her trash and reading strips of torn-up letters she has thrown away. The narrator mentions how Holly sits with her cat on the fire escape, playing the guitar and singing. 

The narrator and Holly’s friendship begins one night in September, when Holly knocks on the narrator’s window. She is trying to escape an aggressive drunk man in her apartment. After the narrator lets her in (or at least doesn’t prevent her from entering), the two begin talking. Holly remarks that the narrator reminds her of her brother Fred, then begins calling the narrator by her brother’s name. When the narrator’s ambitions to be a writer come up, Holly declares that she knows people who can help him. She asks the narrator to read her one of his stories, but when the reading is done, she irritates the narrator with her bored response.

Holly then volunteers some intriguing new information: she is paid to visit an inmate named Sally Tomato at nearby Sing Sing prison every Thursday, under the pretense that she is his niece. After each visit, she passes a “weather report” from Sally to a man she believes to be his lawyer. The narrator voices concern that this may be a potentially dangerous arrangement, but Holly brushes him off. Eventually, Holly falls asleep beside the narrator. Hours later, he notices she is crying and asks why, which causes Holly to leave through the window, remarking that she hates snoops.

Analysis

In this first section, the reader is introduced to a mysterious and eccentric young woman, Holly Golightly. Her enigmatic nature is emphasized by the framing device—the narrator’s encounter with Joe Bell years later—during which it is revealed that the narrator never found out what, exactly, became of Holly. Once the flashback begins, the first thing the readers learns about her is that her mailbox card reads, “Miss Holiday Golightly, Traveling.” This introduces Holly as a transient person, someone without a home or a true sense of belonging. Additionally, the narrator's mention of a bird cage foreshadows Holly's flightiness and her need to break free of all that entraps her.

Read an in-depth character analysis of Holly Golightly.

The reader initially learns about Holly’s character through the narrator’s furtive observations. She dyes her hair, which suggests an artificial outer layer, figuratively in addition to physically. She receives many passionate letters from soldiers fighting in World War II overseas, which she has torn up and thrown away. When she sings, she is especially fond of a song with the lyrics “Don’t wanna sleep. Don’t wanna die. Just wanna go a-travelin’ through the pastures of the sky.” The folk-tune character of the song strikes the narrator as incongruent with her cosmopolitan image, perhaps a hint about Holly’s true roots, far from New York. The song also introduces the association of Holly with birds and flying, which ties into the theme of freedom.

Read an explanation of a quote about Holly’s song.

The scene in which the narrator and Holly formally meet shows us her vulnerable side, as she seeks shelter from a man who has hurt her, and as she talks wistfully about her absent brother, Fred. The narrator reveals a little more about himself, mentioning that the stories he writes are often too provocative to publish. Their first personality clash comes when Holly shows disinterest in the subject matter of the narrator’s story, which she interprets as being about lesbians. Holly’s mercurial temperament is on full display when she expresses boredom with stories about lesbians but then abruptly remarks that people can’t help but think she’s a bit of a lesbian herself, “And of course I am,” she says. “Everyone is: a bit. So what?” Holly is talking about women, but Capote may hold a similar view of men; his characterizations of the narrator, Joe Bell, and Rusty Trawler all include hints that they are gay.

Read an in-depth character analysis of Fred (Holly’s Brother).

Holly’s naivete is evident when she describes her visitation arrangement with Sally Tomato and waves away the narrator’s concern that it might get her into trouble. Her forwardness is shown in the amount of personal information she shares with the narrator and her willingness to share a bed with a man she just met. But when the narrator asks why she is crying, the reader also sees her resistance to involuntary vulnerability: she leaves, declaring that she hates snoops, which is ironic since the narrator has been encroaching on her privacy in other ways, unbeknownst to Holly.

Read an in-depth character analysis of Sally Tomato.

Next section Section 2: Holly leaves a gift basket – Mag moves in with Holly

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