Although World War II doesn’t figure strongly in the characters’ lives, Breakfast at Tiffany’s tells the soap opera-esque story of Holiday Golightly. To add to this sense, our narrator is never given a name (other than the nickname “Fred” by Holly), which allows us to feel like anonymous viewers of the drama that is Holly’s life.

I was especially struck by the ending of the novel because I was left questioning Holly’s happiness: although her postcard seems as though she is living a positively divine and exotic life, like she did in New York City, it seems as though her existence remains as shallow as ever. Her affair with a married man, though presumably wealthy, seems as though it may end like her other relationships do. In fact, dating a married man guards her against confronting her fear of commitment and allows her to avoid connecting with other people in meaningful ways.

It is possible that Holly will be contentedly happy living out her life with exciting affairs and adventures, but it is equally possible that she will fail to find any deeper meaning and she will eventually fade out of the spotlight. As much as Holly loves the curiosity and disapproval she incites in others, it doesn’t seem to me that she can continue this way forever.

I think that the open ended ending is reflective of Holly’s character in some ways, for it is hard to be sure of what is genuine and what we can expect from her. Holly both begins and ends the novel with no one knowing exactly where she is or where she’s been.