Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Goodbye, Columbus, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Relationships, Competition, and Power
Assimilation and Wealth
Self-Delusion and Fantasy vs. Self-Examination and Reality
Nostalgia vs. Progress
Summary
Analysis
Over the next week and a half, the young boy comes into the library every day and looks at the same Gauguin book. One day, however, when the boy does not show up, an older white man tries to take out the same book. Neil claims that there’s a hold on the book, and he says that he can call the man to tell him when it is free. Neil then returns the book to the shelf so that the boy can look at it when he returns.
Neil’s decision to lie and make sure that the boy can continue to look at the Gauguin book illustrates his desire to help the boy continue to develop fantasies. Neil’s own self-delusion echoes this decision, as he resists realistically examining his own fantasies and the source of his love for Brenda.
Themes
Neil also sees Brenda every evening, and as long as everyone goes to bed early, they make love in front of the TV. One evening, Brenda takes Neil swimming at the club. They sit on chairs side by side late in the evening, and when the lights around the pool go out, they don’t move. Neil starts to push the straps of Brenda’s suit down, but she rolls away from him.
Before, Neil was able to gain the upper hand in his and Brenda’s sexual relationship. But the fact that she turns away from his advances here foreshadows a shift in power—one that will become even more pronounced following the game they play later in the evening.
Themes
For the first time in their two weeks together, Brenda asks Neil a question about himself. She asks where his parents are, because her mother wanted to know. He says they’re in Tucson. When Brenda asks why he lives with his Aunt Gladys and Uncle Max, he explains that it’s convenient to his work, and it’s cheaper. Brenda also asks about his job at the library, explaining that her father asked about it. Neil says it’s fine, and that it’s better than selling shoes or working at his uncle Aaron’s real estate company or being in the Army—all of which he did previously.
Brenda’s questions give her a deeper understanding of Neil, but it is ironic that both are prompted by questions that her parents asked, rather than her own curiosity. Her parents’ questions illustrate a curiosity both about Neil’s background and about Neil’s aspirations—indicating that they want to make sure that he shares their values and their appreciation for success and progress before letting him get too serious about their daughter.
Themes
Brenda asks Neil if he plans on making a career in the library. Neil tells her that he hasn’t planned anything in three years, and that he doesn’t like to plan (though he admits internally that this is a lie). Brenda asks if he loves her, and when Neil says no, Brenda responds that she wants him to love her. When he asks if working at the library will be a problem for their relationship, she says that when he loves her, he won’t have to worry about anything. He assures her that if this is the case, he will love her.
Here, Roth provides more evidence for the idea that Neil’s love is based purely on the fantasy of what Brenda’s life can do for him. He doesn’t love Brenda yet, but the idea that all his worries might go away if he were to love Brenda is an appealing one, so he readily agrees to it.
Themes
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Brenda suggests that Neil take a swim. She’ll close her eyes and when he comes back, he’ll surprise her with his wetness. Neil agrees, but when he dives into the water he has an uneasy suspicion that Brenda is planning to leave. He immediately races back to the chairs, but Brenda is still there, and he kisses her. They take turns going to the pool and returning, but when Brenda leaves and doesn’t return for a long time he becomes unreasonably worried. When she returns, he holds her desperately and tells her that he loves her.
Brenda essentially sets up a game to see who can be the most withholding. She wins by getting Neil to give in first because of his insecurity in their relationship, and at the same time she gets him to say that he loves her, whereas only a short time earlier, he had said that he did not. Thus, Brenda’s game restores her power in their relationship.
Themes
The summer goes on, and Neil sees Brenda every evening. They swim, walk, and eat dinner at restaurants together. When Ron returns from Milwaukee, they watch him play basketball in a summer league. At the games, Neil becomes unnerved because Brenda knows everyone, including a player named Luther Ferrari whom Brenda dated in high school. Luther is very nice to both Neil and Brenda, but Neil becomes more and more anguished at the prospect of going to the games. Instead, they go to see movies and dance together, and when they return to Brenda’s house, they make love.
Neil and Brenda’s activities are an encapsulation of the small power struggles between them. Neil doesn’t like attending Ron’s games because he feels that Brenda holds power when they are there. She knows everyone and also interacts with an ex-boyfriend, making Neil feel isolated and jealous. In turn, he persuades her away from attending the games in order to try to reassert his own power over her.
Themes
Mr. and Mrs. Patimkin continue to treat Neil kindly, and when Brenda suggests to her father that at the end of August Neil stay at the house for a week, Mr. Patimkin agrees. When Neil tells Aunt Gladys about his vacation on the Friday before he is leaving, she is amazed, but also annoyed he didn’t tell her sooner. She asks if they have room to take Neil for a week. When Neil responds that they don’t live “over the store,” Aunt Gladys says that she lived over a store when she was growing up and wasn’t ashamed. She says that even though they don’t have money lying around, they can put Susan through college and live comfortably.
Here Roth illustrates how Neil is starting to align himself with the Patimkins rather than with his own family. Not only is he physically distancing himself from them by staying at the Patimkins’ house for a week, but he is also unintentionally judging his family’s economic status. Aunt Gladys affirms that even though they weren’t wealthy growing up and still aren’t as wealthy as the Patimkins, she is pleased with what she has been able to accomplish in her life and the progress that she has made for her family—just like Mr. Patimkin.
Themes
Aunt Gladys asks Neil if he doesn’t get enough to eat in her home. Neil assures her he gets everything he wants at her home, but he’s just taking a vacation. Aunt Gladys asks him to leave the Patimkins’ telephone number, and she asks where they live. When Neil says that they live in Short Hills, she says that they can’t be “real Jews” if they live in Short Hills. She then gives him a few pieces of fruit to take with him, which he eats on the way to work.
Aunt Gladys’s comment—that the Patimkins can’t really be Jewish if they live in Short Hills—indicates her belief that the Patimkins have distanced themselves from their Jewish identity by moving to an affluent neighborhood. Roth suggests that their wealth has enabled them to assimilate and forego some of their Jewish heritage.
Themes
That day, Mr. Scapello tells Neil that when he returns from vacation, Neil will take over the Reference Room and will get an $8 increase in salary. Mr. Scapello says that he got the same promotion twelve years earlier, and Neil worries that he will follow in Mr. Scapello’s exact footsteps. Just then, the older white man returns in search of the Gauguin book. Neil says, somewhat rudely, that the book should be back any day, hoping the man will leave before Mr. Scapello returns and potentially catches Neil lying. The man leaves in a huff.
Roth often focuses on characters other than Neil in exploring the theme of nostalgia and progress, but here Roth implies that Neil is a person who remains optimistic and looks forward to a better future, even if he doesn’t fully understand what that path looks like yet. This is also one of the reasons that Brenda’s life is so appealing to Neil, because she is a possible escape from his job at the library—something she hinted at earlier in the chapter.
Themes
After lunch, the boy returns and Neil asks if he wants to get a library card to take the book home so that he doesn’t have to come back every day. The boy protests that someone at home could destroy it and that he likes to come to the library. He becomes upset thinking that Neil doesn’t want him around the library. Later, Neil worries about losing his job as he drives to Short Hills, but then he realizes that he doesn’t want the library to be his life anyway.
Neil again tries to protect the boy’s ability to fantasize about life in Tahiti using the Gauguin book. The boy’s affirmation that he likes the library and doesn’t want to bring the book home is another nod to the power of fantasy. The library is a peaceful place into which he can escape, and he worries that bringing his fantasy home into his real life might destroy it.
Themes
