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Mag Wildwood
Rusty Trawler is an outgoing man whose flushed demeanor makes him seem like a child with a grown man’s body. Rusty’s wealthy parents died when he was very young, making news because his father was killed by an anarchist (his mother died shortly thereafter of shock). Public attention centered on Rusty again when he later accused his godfather of “sodomy” (it’s unclear if this means his godfather had sexual relations with him or with someone else), and then he made news once again when he went through the first of his three divorces. When the narrator meets him, Rusty is a Nazi-sympathizer who has been seeing Holly, and everyone thinks they’ll most likely get married. Holly, for her part, admits that she would only do so because Rusty is rich, especially because the marriage wouldn’t be real, anyway, since Rusty is gay. Despite what everyone thinks, though, Rusty ends up marrying Mag Wildwood. This leaves Holly free to marry José, though this never happens, either.
Rusty Trawler Quotes in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
The Breakfast at Tiffany’s quotes below are all either spoken by Rusty Trawler or refer to Rusty Trawler. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Breakfast at Tiffany’s Quotes
“Rusty thinks I should smoke marijuana, and I did for a while, but it only makes me giggle. What I’ve found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany’s. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there, not with those kind men in their nice suits, and that lovely smell of silver and alligator wallets. If I could find a real-life place that made me feel like Tiffany’s, then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name.”
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Or, and the question is apparent, was my outrage a little the result of being in love with Holly myself? A little. For I was in love with her. Just as I’d once been in love with my mother’s elderly colored cook and a postman who let me follow him on his rounds and a whole family named McKendrick. That category of love generates jealousy, too.
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Rusty Trawler Character Timeline in Breakfast at Tiffany’s
The timeline below shows where the character Rusty Trawler appears in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
...narrator, O.J. bemoans the fact that Holly wants to live off of “tips” and marry Rusty Trawler. In response, the narrator says he doesn’t know Rusty. This, O.J. says, means he...
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...putting on music, and boisterously introducing people to one another. Holly refers to him as Rusty, asking him to complete various tasks. This, the narrator learns, is Rusty Trawler.
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...books, he finds a newspaper clipping wedged into one of them. The clipping is about Rusty Trawler, which is how the narrator learns that Rusty became a millionaire orphan in 1908...
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Rusty approaches Holly and the narrator and complains that he’s hungry, accusing Holly of not loving...
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...on the fire escape with the nameless cat. Mag tells Holly that she’s lucky because Rusty is, at the very least, American. This means very little to Holly, who says she’ll...
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...Holly, since she keeps such unconventional hours. While the narrator sleeps, Holly goes out with Rusty, Mag, and José, and the narrator wonders why José spends so much time with this...
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...out, which happens right after Holly returns from a trip she took in February with Rusty, Mag, and José. While the narrator rubs oil on her back, Holly tells him about...
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...on him, since she has to work so hard to make it—after all, he adds, “Rusty Trawler is too hard a way of earning it.” Instantly, Holly sits up, exposing her...
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...see the rest. Suddenly, he feels angry, jealous, and disappointed. The thought of Holly marrying Rusty Trawler deeply upsets the narrator—so much that he wonders why, exactly, he feels like this....
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Rushing off the subway, the narrator buys a newspaper and sees that Rusty isn’t marrying Holly, but Mag Wildwood. Confused, he goes back to the brownstone, where Madame...
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...matters worse, there aren’t very many people to call. When he phones Mag Wildwood and Rusty Trawler and explains what happened, Mag tells him that she and Rusty will sue anyone...
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...things to tell her. For starters, he has sold several stories. He’s also heard that Rusty and Mag are getting divorced. As for himself, he’s moving out of the brownstone because...
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