The Greek philosopher Aristotle once said that “’the female is a female by virtue of a certain lack of qualities…we should regard the female nature as afflicted with a natural defectiveness’” (quoted by Simone De Beauvoir). Yet it is possible that men suffer from many of the same defects, at least as far as romance and relationships are concerned. In Truman Capote’s novella, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Holly Golightly is a young socialite in New York who has a knack for getting herself into bad relationships with men who are like “rats.” Similarly, in Nick Hornby’s novel, High Fidelity, Rob Fleming is a record-store owner in London who reflects on a history of failed relationships in the wake of his latest breakup. Both Holly and Rob have a similar longing for romance, but their fear of being caged and resistance to change damages their chances of forming long-term commitments.
Fear can be an immensely driving force in any situation, and for Holly and Rob it is their fear of being caged in or tied down that keeps them from their goals. When the narrator in Breakfast at Tiffany’s asks Holly about the peculiar nature of her name card she replies, “’After all, how do I know where I’ll be living tomorrow? So I told them to put Traveling’” (42). Rob expresses a similar feeling when he says, “To me, it makes more sense to hop from woman to woman until you’re too old to do it anymore, and then you live alone and die alone and what’s so terrible about that, when you look at the alternatives?” (247-48). In this case, and in many others, Rob acknowledges what Holly does not, that it is easier not to become too attached to anyone who could hurt you. It is the fear that once they step into that cage they will be a captive audience for the duration of their lives, while they would like to be able to get out at any time. It is for similar reasons that Holly refuses to give her cat a name, “’but I haven’t any right to give him one: he’ll have to wait until he belongs to somebody…we don’t belong to each other: he’s an independent, and so am I. I don’t want to own anything until I know I’ve found the place where me and things belong together’” (39). In addition, even though Rob has spent the majority of the novel trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, Laura, he begins to have second thoughts once she moves back in: “It would be nicer, in some ways, if I wasn’t so bound to her; it would be nicer if those sweet possibilities, that dreamy anticipation you have when you’re fifteen or twenty or twenty-five, even, and you know that the most perfect person in the world might walk into your shop or office or friend’s party at any moment…” (305). Here we can see that the characters’ ideals have a large part in creating that cage; they know they would like to belong to somebody but they expect a certain level of perfection that is simply unattainable. As Tamar Jeffers McDonald points out, radical romantic comedies (like these texts) brought up for the first time “the idea that romance and satisfaction could be opposite values” (67). Rob and Holly demonstrate a “yearning for the type of instant attraction and eternal devotion assumed to be possible by older texts” (McDonald, 67). For these two characters, their relationships are no longer “a lived relation: it is abstracted and annulled in an object-sign where it is consumed” (Baudrillard, 418). As a result of their conflicting desires to simultaneously possess (or consume) the signifiers of romance but not get tied down in a relationship, both Rob and Holly will never be content.
In most romantic relationships there is an unspoken assumption that both partners will change in some way, yet Holly and Rob’s resistance to change has the unfortunate effect of putting an expiration date on their relationships. While trying to understand Holly the narrator comes to the realization that she is very much like a girl he knew in school: “They would never change because they’d been given their character too soon; which, like sudden riches, leads to a lack of proportion: the one had splurged herself into a top-heavy realist, the other a lopsided romantic…They would walk through life and out of it with the same determined step that took small notice of those cliffs at the left” (58). By the same token, Laura (Rob’s ex-girlfriend) says to him, “’you are exactly the same person you used to be. You haven’t changed so much as a pair of socks in the years I’ve known you. If we’ve grown apart, then I’m the one who’s done the growing…All I’m saying is that if you believe in a long-term monogamous relationship at all, then you have to allow for things happening to people’” (270-71). Ultimately it is this unchanging personality that is their greatest tragedy; they are like rocks in a stream that may occasionally get leaves or moss stuck on them, but everything eventually gets swept away and they are left alone. Simone De Beauvoir states that “Man can think of himself without woman. She cannot think of herself without man.” These characters prove that both genders are equally capable of defining themselves without the help of a significant other, even though this turns out to be detrimental. In the end of both stories, Rob and Holly realize their mistakes, but only Rob breaks out of character and does something about it. For example, after Holly gets rid of the cat she realizes: “’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’” (109). Yet she still gets on a plane to Brazil with the hopes of marrying a millionaire and somehow ends up in Africa. Rob also comes to a similar conclusion: “I’m going to jump from rock to rock for the rest of my life until there aren’t any rocks left? I’m going to run each time I get itchy feet? ...I’ve been thinking with my guts since I was fourteen years old, and frankly speaking…I have come to the conclusion that my guts have shit for brains” (315). He decides to turn this insight into action and actually improves his relationship with Laura now that he understands how to accept the changes she has made. He even sets out to make a few changes of his own to make his life more fulfilling. As a result, it is a resistance to change that dooms Holly to making the same mistakes over and over again, whereas Rob is able to break the cycle.
In conclusion, it is the fear of being caged and a resistance to change which blocks Holly Golightly of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Rob Fleming of High Fidelity from forming the kind of stable relationships they crave. It is important to note that the similarity between these two characters (one male, one female) disproves not only Aristotle but many other theorists as well. As Chris Barker points out, “There is a strand of feminist thinking that stresses the essential differences between men and women. However, most cultural studies writers have chosen to explore the idea of the historically specific, unstable, plastic and malleable character of sexual identity” (314). Although Holly Golightly was written by a male author, the essence of this comparison shows that failure to commit to or allow growth in a relationship is not a gender specific trait, but one that could affect any of us.
Works Cited
Barker, Chris. Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice. 3rd edition. London: SAGE Publications
Ltd., 2008.
Baudrillard, Jean. “The System of Objects.” 409-419.
Capote, Truman. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
De Beauvoir, Simone. "Introduction: Woman as Other." (1949).
Hornby, Nick. High Fidelity. New York: Riverhead Books, 1995.
McDonald, Tamar Jeffers. Romantic Comedy: Boy Meets Girl Meets Genre. London: Wallflower
Press, 2007.
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