Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella) debt to Christopher Isherwood, one of his mentors, in creating the character of Holly Golightly: ""Breakfast at Tiffany's" is in many ways Capote's personal crystallization of Isherwood's Sally Bowles." Truman Capote's aunt, Marie Rudisill notes that Holly is a kindred spirit of Miss Lily Jane Bobbit, the central character of his short story "Children on Their Birthdays". She observes that both characters are "unattached, unconventional wanderers, dreamers in pursuit of some ideal of happiness." Capote himself acknowledged that Golightly was the favorite of his characters. The novella's prose style prompted Norman Mailer to call Capote "the most perfect writer of
The Novella friends. The Novella is introduced in her quarters, with her "bravo" (bodyguard/thug/manservant) Borgio and her African serving maid Jaconetta (she of Pantaloni's bed trick). The Novella is shown manipulating and putting off the men who circle around her; at one point she comes close to being raped by an ardent Spanish gentleman, though she is saved by Borgio and a German named Swartzenburgh. (The play confuses the Germans, "Deutsch," with the Dutch — a confusion common among the English at the time.) The Novella proves to be Victoria, come from Rome in search of Fabritio; she has adopted her courtesan