Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn by Sidney DeJong

Basic Information

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 01:54:04 UTC

The title of my book is Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn, written by Donald Spoto. I chose to read this book because I wanted to learn more about Audrey’s childhood and journey to fame. The story is mainly focused on Audrey Hepburn. She is descrided as an exuberant young woman. She started out as a ballerina, which got her into the movie industry, where she became a very famous actress. She stared in a lot of famous movies during her lifetime and was also seen as a fashion icon to the world. She was also married twice and had two children.

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 01:55:57 UTC

Events

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:05:55 UTC

Audrey started doing ballet when she was very young. As she grew older, some connections from ballet helped her to get an audition for a movie. She almost didn’t go, but her ballet teacher convinced her to go. She ended up getting the part, and from there, her success skyrocketed.
In her newest role, she saw that she was put into a romantic role with a partner that was twice her age. She was extremely uncomfortable, but was forced to complete the movie with him. When it came out, she was constantly sexualized due to it and in her personal life, began to experience serious anxiety and mental health issues, which impacted lots of different aspects of her life.
She was very interested in helping children in Africa with their struggles, so she worked with UNICEF to advocate for their rights and help get them the aid they needed so badly. This experience helped shape Audrey as a person and she helped change the lives of thousands of children.

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:07:49 UTC

Setting

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:14:37 UTC

The story takes place in Europe from the 1920s to the 1940s. She moves to the U.S. during the 1950s at the start of her acting career and remained there until the time of her death. European society during her childhood was very traditional. It was expected for women to have a husband to provide for them, to give birth to many children, and to stay home to cook and clean. For the main part of her life, she resided in the U.S. because that’s where her acting career and her family was. The places that Audrey lived affected how women were perceived. Audrey, specifically, was very sexualized and exploited by the people around her and she was also expected to act certain ways for the public eye.

Author’s Purpose

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:19:50 UTC

I think that the main theme of the book is to be resilient in front of life’s challenges. Audrey constantly had things thrown into her path, but she overcame every problem by being strong and brave. I think that the author was very inspired by Audrey’s career and might have known her personally, so that might have been why he wanted to write the book. He knew quite a lot about her personal life and feelings and her family background, so I think it was quite possible that he might have known her personally or maybe known a close family member.

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:20:47 UTC

Rhetorical Appeals

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:37:05 UTC

Ethos: He used a lot of other famous people’s opinions on Audrey to help us understand what she was really like behind the scenes and many other people’s personal experiences with her. It made the story a lot more believable because it came from the famous, credible people around her.

Pathos: He provided specific information about her distant father and how her wasn’t present in her life, as well as her feelings about her divorces. The one that really made me emotional was her stories about the suffering children in Africa and how they had no food or water and were barely surviving on their own.

Logos: He used dates and lots of historical information about her family’s background to help make sense of a timeline of her childhood and when her parents met. He also provided her parent’s full government names and their titles to go with it.

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:40:47 UTC

Quotation

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:48:05 UTC

“She generated hope and goodwill with dignity and compassion,” said Martha Hyer Wallis, her friend at the time of Sabrina. “She gave so much of herself to so many people,” (Spoto 311). I think that this quote perfectly summarizes who Audrey was as a person. She was always kind to others and had such a big heart. She was also always willing to give to others even when she was struggling with her own problems. Her spirit uplifted all of those around her and impacted the lives of millions.

Musical Connections

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:51:09 UTC

I chose Moon River by Henry Mancini. I think it connects to Audrey’s life because it has lyrics that talk about being adventurous and being swept to new places. I think her life is very similar because she is always doing something new and exciting and her life was always heading in multiple directions.

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:51:22 UTC

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 02:53:06 UTC

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 03:00:04 UTC

Works Cited

27sadejong — 2025-04-24 03:38:07 UTC

Spoto, Donald. Enchantment: The Life of Audrey Hepburn. Harmony Books, New York. 2006.

Audrey Hepburn biography book cover. (Online Image) Amazon, 23 Apr 2025

Audrey Hepburn. (Online Image) Britannica, 23 Apr 2025

Audrey Hepburn and child. (Online Image) UNICEF, 23 Apr 2025

Audrey Hepburn doing ballet. (Online Image) Rock n Romance, 23 Apr 2025

Audrey Hepburn with husband and child. (Online Image) Woman’s World, 23 Apr 2025

Audrey Hepburn with a doll. (Online Image) Lisa’s History Room, 23 Apr 2025

“Henry Mancini-Moon River (Originally Demo (Official Audio) ft. Johnny Mercer.” Henry Mancini. Youtube. 15 Dec. 2014. Online. 23 Apr. 2025.

“Inside Audrey Hepburn’s Secret Life: Her Childhood, Style, & Path to True Love.” People. Youtube. 22 Aug. 2017. Online. 23 Apr. 2025.

27sadejong — 2025-05-08 04:19:13 UTC