Text/Pastoral
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The film Breakfast at Tiffany is based on the famous Southern literary writer Truman W. Bush in the history of American literature. Adapted from Truman Capote's novel of the same name. Starring the famous British film star Audrey Hepburn, the film caused a huge sensation when it was released.
The film portrays a distinct female character, Holly. The beautiful Holly is from rural Texas, she has experienced the ups and downs of life, and she wants to live the life of an upper class person. Coupled with the worship of money and materialism, Holly became a socialite of New York high society, earning a social income from fifty or one hundred per hour. In her heart, there is also an important goal, that is, to marry the upper class, find the "backer" of life, and end this poor and turbulent life.
But class differences have always been the mountain that separates her from her ideal idol. Finally, under the inspiration of a man who is also not rich but has the dream of a writer and loves him deeply, Holly finally understands the true meaning of life, chooses to reconcile with life and herself, gives up flashy and unrealistic dreams, and becomes her true self.
Filmed in the 1960s, the film, although it has been a long time, still has a thought-provoking significance today. From the body of holly, the "gold worshipper", we see that everyone is bound and involved with matter, with life, with others, and with self.
In today's article, we will deeply analyze the 3-fold relationship that everyone has to establish with the world from the body of the "gold worshipper" Holly: that is, the relationship between people and things, the relationship between people and people, and the relationship between people and themselves.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >01 The first relationship: the relationship between people and things</h1>
At the beginning of the film, Holly wears a small black dress, high heels, and a crown, looking like a lady of the upper class, but it is out of place with Holly eating cheap bread and looking at Tiffany's luxury ornaments. For Holly, it has always been her dream to be able to freely enter and leave high-end places like Tiffany, buy luxury accessories whenever and wherever she wants, and live a carefree life. It seems that for her, rich "material" wealth, luxury goods, is the only element that highlights people's status.
Therefore, from a poor background, she chose a path of worship of gold, with a good appearance and figure, she hovered between rich men, and even almost used by the mafia in order to earn a tip.
In the movie, we can also repeatedly see Holly's clothing, clothing, use, and cosmetics, all of which are exquisite and tasteful brands.
From here, we can see that there are always inseparable relationships between people and matter. People's lives are inseparable from things, and things also provide people with the necessary resources and conditions for life and production. But we usually ignore that "things" can also be "alienated" under people's use.
So what is "alienation"? If we know a little about the history of Western philosophy, we will know that
"Alienation" is a philosophical concept that is repeatedly mentioned in German classical philosophy, thus further expanding and deepening its meaning. Martin Luther first translated the concept of alienation in the Greek Bible into The German hat sich gesaussert (loss of self), and later various philosophical schools have made various interpretations of "alienation" from different angles, but there is only one core, that is, alienation is the loss of the original appearance of things, and the position and relationship between subject and object have been reversed.
From the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's", we can deeply understand the "alienation" of people and things, in the movie, the relationship between people and things has undergone "alienation", that is, originally people dominate objects, but in the end, objects in turn dominate people; originally people dominate money, and later, money dominates people.
In contrast to our real world, why not?
College students take out naked loans and sell eggs in exchange for new iPhones;
Young people ignore their financial situation and overdraft their credit cards in advance in exchange for the bags and luxuries they want;
A variety of workplaces "exquisite and poor";
……
Therefore, Wu Bofan mentioned in the "Cognitive Methodology":
With the lens of alienation, we can feel the situation of "the means become the end, the servant becomes the master"—without any compulsion, we may also regard the means as the end, and set all kinds of traps for ourselves.
Therefore, no matter what era, we can never escape the proposition of the relationship between people and things, but we also know that a healthy relationship should be that people can use things to create value for their work and life, rather than being dragged by external objects and becoming slaves to "things".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >02 The second relationship: the relationship between people</h1>
In "Breakfast at Tiffany's", the relationship between the heroine Holly and people from all walks of life and circles runs through from beginning to end. Whether it's her landlord, the celebrities she invites to the prom, the poor writer who falls in love with him, and even the mafia who uses her for drug dealing, these complex interpersonal relationships force the otherwise simple and cute Holly to wear various masks to face.
Individual psychologist Adler once mentioned such a point in "Inferiority and Transcendence":
Man faces three major constraints in this life, starting from these three constraints, people have to face three kinds of tasks, one is the task of people to work, because people must work if they want to survive; the other is to deal with the relationship between people, because no one can be a single individual from birth, from birth to death, they are inextricably linked to the people around them, and the third is that people want to reproduce and face marriage and family.
In Adler's view, handling the relationship between people is one of the three major tasks in life.
Teacher Qiu Zilong said in the "Genetic Science Class" that the relationship between people can be divided into two categories, one is the kinship composed of shared genes, such as the relationship with parents and children. There is also a type of relationship that develops in society, there are purely sociological relationships, such as colleagues and friends, and biological relationships, such as partnerships.
In Breakfast at Tiffany's, Holly has a variety of relationships and "roles": she is the wife of a veterinarian, the stepmother of four children, and after leaving, she becomes a socialite who walks on various occasions, becomes a mafia user, and he is also a poor writer's neighbor, girlfriend, and of course, she is herself.
In fact, no matter what kind of relationship between people is divided, each person is in their own role to survive.
The famous product manager Liang Ning once said:
As a person in real society, to deal with the relationship of becoming another person, it is necessary to "recognize the nature of man and understand the role of survival." And this "role" survival is because we are in a variety of interpersonal relationships, dealing with various different relationships between people.
And in reality, why don't we survive under this kind of role-based interpretation? We are employees and bosses; we are children and parents; we are teachers and students...
So Liang Ning said: Collective, is a bunch of roles. We are trained by the roles in the various roles, and we live with the expectations of the real world for the various characters.
Therefore, the relationship between people is the relationship of various role plays, and we cannot escape from any role, nor can we escape the treatment of the relationship between people.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >03 The third relationship: the relationship between man and self</h1>
The whole film can be said to be a "history of self-awakening" of Holly, until the end, the confession and enlightenment of the poor writer to Holly, which pushes the whole film to a climax.
The writer says:
Miss Nameless, do you know what's wrong with you? You are afraid of things, you have no guts, you are afraid to hold your chest up and say, "Life is like this." People love each other and belong to each other because that's the only chance to be truly happy. You claim to be unruly and wild, afraid that others will put you in a cage, but you are already in a cage, which you have built with your own hands.
From this confession, we can see that in the end, people finally discover themselves and find themselves in a process. Just like the classic answer of the millennium - "know yourself", this is a question that each of us must answer, face, and seek answers throughout our lives.
Many people have not noticed the importance of knowing themselves and discovering themselves, and perhaps they know how to be successful in interpersonal relationships, but they do not know how to deal with the relationship between people and themselves.
In the "New Yorker" magazine, there was an article in the article, which mentioned: Self, the pursuit of self-realization and improvement is a human instinct. This instinct of the ego urges us to understand and deal with our relationship with the ego.
Teacher Chen Haixian also said in "Psychology of Self-Development": The human self is actually the self in the relationship. That is to say, everyone is still looking for the true self in various relationships.
But whether it is the individual self or the self in the relationship, this will be the subject we need to face all our lives.
Attentive viewers will discover that there is always a nameless cat in the movie, and the final scene is Holly searching for the cat she has just abandoned in the rain.
The metaphor of the cat is profound, from beginning to end, the cat has no name, Holly said, not knowing how to name her. It's like Holly herself, who never knows who she is, never wants to really know herself, or even face her relationships, and is unwilling to face her true self.
However, in the end, she was enlightened and moved by the writer's words, and the scene of getting off the bus to find the cat touched many people, because it also symbolized that Holly finally learned to start to discover herself, find herself, learn to name herself, define her life, rather than being bound by materialism, fame and status.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > conclusion</h1>
As Theodore . Dresser concludes the same at the beginning of Carrie's Sister:
When a girl leaves home at the age of seventeen or eighteen, she has only two ways to go, either to meet a good person who teaches people to be good and lead her to the good, or to quickly accept the moral code that prevails in this world and to fall from it. As for taking the middle path, it is impossible to change the good and not to be bad in such a realistic environment.
Capote's Holly is exactly that. Holly is innocent in nature, luckily into the upper class, although she once lost herself in the relationship with foreign objects, with all kinds of people, but in the end, she still did not forget her original intention, in this bright and green world, still maintain her innocence, did not lose the most fundamental purity and kindness of human nature.
Looking at Holly's life trajectory, we understand the purity of Holly's heart, perhaps because of Holly's utilitarian impurity, so she has always been on the edge of her dream life, and has never been able to get close. However, Holly did not forget her original intention, always full of hope, and constantly pursued the pure land that she longed for in her heart, and finally found herself and found herself.
I hope that each of us can also face it correctly and positively in the 3-fold relationship that we have to escape, and become the self that our hearts really want to be.