LEADER
Herb Shapiro received his Ph.D. in American literature from the University of Rochester. His specialty is mid-20th-century American literature, culture and film. He has enjoyed working with adult readers in Rochester and at UCLA, Stanford, Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida, and various SUNY campuses in New York State, where he has taught both undergraduate and graduate students. In 2024 he led a Classical Pursuits seminar on The Great Gatsby. He has never been to Kansas!
BOOK AND FILM
Breakfast at Tiffany’s: A Short Novel and Three Stories by Truman Capote
(Modern Library Edition, 1994)
ISBN-13: 978-0679600855
Breakfast at Tiffany’s directed by Blake Edwards
(Paramount Pictures, 1961)
Available on DVD; for streaming options in the US visit JustWatch and for streaming options in Canada visit JustWatch Canada
Selected essays to be provided via PDF
SEMINAR OVERVIEW
“I want to still be me when I wake up one fine morning and have breakfast at Tiffany’s,” Truman Capote’s iconic Holly Golightly tells her neighbour.
What does she mean; just who is Holly Golightly? A “wild thing” and an “independent” as she describes herself? A “crude exhibitionist” and “time waster,” as she is called by the narrator who is both charmed and repelled by her? “A phony. But a real phoney, you know,” in the words of her agent?
This character-centred novel captured the ambiguity of post-Depression America, a time when more people were sexually active outside marriage even as public attitudes did not reflect this change. Breakfast at Tiffany’s was in many ways ahead of its time in its depiction of a free-spirited young woman seeking autonomy and sexual freedom in the 1940s, looking ahead to the more openly liberal attitudes of the 1960s.
Capote’s story also deftly explores the tensions in mid-20th-century America between resistance to materialism and the power of social norms, and a simultaneous yearning for the stability and respectability that middle-class conformity conveys.
The 1961 film adaptation by director Blake Edwards undermines Capote’s sociopolitical themes by creating a romantic Hollywood version. We are going to look closely at how the book and film versions treat the sexual and sociopolitical themes and content Capote lays out. And we’ll interrogate the artistic merits of these two very different works, and how the casting and screenplay of the film have enabled it to establish itself as a cultural touchstone of its kind, like the novella that inspired it.
Toronto Pursuits afternoon seminar
You can add this afternoon seminar on Breakfast at Tiffany’s to your main Toronto Pursuits registration, or register for it as a standalone program.
The standalone registration price includes 4.5 seminar hours, an early-evening screening of the film with drinks and snacks on Wednesday, July 16, and all inclusions of the Toronto Pursuits program.
The afternoon seminar takes place Monday, Tuesday and Thursday from 2:30 to 4 p.m.
Included in the standalone registration are 4.5 seminar hours and an early-evening screening of the film with drinks and snacks on Wednesday, July 16. Plus a hot buffet lunch on seminar meeting days, preseminar afternoon talks, attendance at our welcome cocktail party, and a Toronto Summer Music Festival concert ticket.
Toronto Pursuits 2025
See the Toronto Pursuits 2025 page for full details on the program schedule, health and safety, booking your accommodations, terms and conditions, and more.
