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Similar Childhood Backgrounds

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Holly, Joel, and Perry all have similar childhood backgrounds. They each have abandonment issues and traumatic experiences that shape their personalities. Holly Golightly lost her parents at young age to tuberculosis. She was encumbered with her younger brother, Fred, to care for, when she herself was still a child. Her brother and her jumped from home to home. None of the homes cared for them and they suffered from neglect. It was not until they ran away one night and were caught stealing milk and eggs by Doc Golightly’s daughter did they finally find a home. Or at least her brother did. Doc was infatuated with Holly and spoiled her endlessly. Eventually, she agreed to marry him when she was only fourteen year old. However, she would sneak …show more content…

According to him, his troubling childhood is to blame for the path of destruction he took. Nonetheless, he is forsaken and has no one or place to turn to. Capote exposes the character’s familial backgrounds to provide context as to why they follow through with certain decisions or actions.
Capote reveals the motif of self-identity through the interactions Holly, Joel, and Perry have with other characters in the book . Each character struggles with searching for who they are. Their traumatic experiences as children left them with no one to turn to so as adults they turn to others to find truth about themselves. For example, Holly’s self-identity comes from her marriage to Doc Golightly. Her real name is not Holly Golightly, but rather Lulamae Barnes. A name says a lot about a person because it ties back to their roots and family. It is possible that she changed her name because she wanted to forget her family’s history or even forget the girl she was. Nonetheless, a name is a form of identification and for Holly to change her’s makes it clear that she does not know who she is. To further emphasize a name with self-identification, Capote uses symbolism to relate Holly to her stray cat. Holly states, “Poor

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