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Y by Jane Berney
Yorick to Yunioshi
The character of Yunioshi in Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, was based on the Japanese American artist Kuniyoshi, who spent his creative life trying to illustrate his patriotism to the US. Yunioshi was the frustrated photographer in Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s, who lived in the same building as Holly Golightly, and had designs on her that were never fulfilled.
The court jester Yorick, was quite possibly in Hamlet’s life as a child, and is represented by the skull that the grave diggers hold up to the bewildered Hamlet. Hamlet was famous, for among other things, being the first early modern play to bring human remains (skulls) to the stage.
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