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
Three days before Ron’s wedding, Neil and Brenda drive into New York. Neil waits in Central Park while Brenda goes to the doctor’s office. When Brenda goes through the doors, she is almost crying. Neil walks over to the park, but then he decides to turn towards St. Patrick’s church to escape the heat. Neil sits in the church and prays to God, thinking that he wants to make the best of things, and he wonders what exactly it is that he loves. He also wonders what God’s “prize” is. When Neil leaves the church and walks along Fifth Avenue, he answers his own question, thinking that God’s prize is gold dinnerware, nectarines, and “bumpless noses.”
This trip—and Neil’s monologue—is a turning point in his own self-examination, as he starts to try to understand the source of his feelings for Brenda. However, because he is addressing God, he is not fully asking these questions of himself, and thus he still continues to idealize his relationship with her. Additionally, Neil concludes that God’s “prize” is material goods. Thus, he hints at the idea that his fantasy is borne of Brenda’s wealth, even though he does not yet connect these ideas.
Themes
Neil goes to the fountain in Central Park, and he sees Brenda coming out of the doctor’s building carrying nothing. For a moment, Neil is glad that Brenda might have disobeyed him. But then Brenda tells Neil that she’s wearing the diaphragm. Neil says that he loves her. That night, they make love very tenderly, nervous about Brenda’s new device. Over the weekend, Neil and Brenda barely see each other, as the last-minute wedding preparations become chaotic.
Neil’s attempt at self-examination leads him to understand that he may not actually want Brenda to make the commitment that he has requested of her. But knowing that she has done so gives Neil the feeling of power in the relationship—a feeling that quashes any doubts he had previously held.
Themes
The night before the wedding, Ron invites Neil to listen to music in his room. Ron plays the Columbus record for Neil, which he says his college (Ohio State) gives to all the seniors. The song is a marching song, and overlain on it are recordings of key events throughout Ron’s senior year, including a recording of basketball game commentary that featured Ron. When they announce his name, the crowd goes wild and Ron is excited to hear his name on the record. At the end of the record, the band plays the Alma Mater, and ends with a voice saying “goodbye, Columbus.” As the song finishes, Ron closes his eyes, and Neil sneaks from the room as Ron hums on his bed.
This is a crucial example of how the characters’ nostalgia precludes them from happiness in the present and future. Even on the eve of his wedding, Ron is more focused on what he is losing than what he is looking forward to—particularly because he has had to give up a job he wanted as a gym teacher in order to work for his father’s business. The fact that the title of the novella comes from this record also indicates a degree of nostalgia in Neil, as he will look back on his summer romance with Brenda in a similar way.
Themes
At the wedding, Neil meets many of Brenda’s extended family members, including Mr. Patimkin’s half-brother Leo. At the reception, the band starts to play. Mr. Patimkin dances with Julie, and Brenda is dancing with Ron’s best man, Luther Ferrari. Neil winds up sitting next to Leo. Leo commends Neil on dating Brenda, saying that he has a “deal” if he doesn’t mess up their relationship. Leo then says he wishes he hadn’t rushed into marriage, and he says that the only good thing that happened to him was getting a cheap deal for his apartment in Queens from his mother-in-law.
Even Leo recognizes the inherent appeal of Neil marrying Brenda, and how this would improve his socioeconomic standing (implied through his use of the word “deal”). This implies that marrying Brenda is more of a business transaction than a romantic one. Leo also establishes himself as another character who is obsessed with nostalgia. He is focused on his past happiness and regrets the decisions that have led him to his unhappy present.
Themes
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Brenda, Ferrari, Mr. Patimkin, and Julie stop dancing, and Neil rushes over to Brenda. Ferrari whisks Julie away, and Mr. Patimkin talks to Brenda and Neil about the wedding, implying that if they want to get married, they would have his blessing and Neil could work for his business. Brenda and Neil then dance and have dinner together. After dinner, the night continues with more eating, drinking, and dancing. By three o’clock in the morning people begin to depart, drunk and sated. Brenda, who has been drinking copious amounts of champagne, heads for the bathroom.
Mr. Patimkin’s offer for Neil to join the business if he marries Brenda emphasizes how Neil’s exposure to Brenda’s family and their wealth—and the possibility of joining their family—gives him a greater ability to achieve the classic American dream. This is also one of the reasons that Neil perpetuates the idea of marrying Brenda as a fantasy in his mind. As she said previously, marrying her would mean an end to Neil’s concerns about the future and would allow him to achieve great wealth.
Themes
When Brenda departs for the bathroom, Leo—who is also very drunk—returns to sit next to Neil. Leo, who is a lightbulb salesman, starts to ramble about the quality of the fluorescent lights in the room. He laments that he isn’t as successful as Mr. Patimkin, that he can’t even buy a car and wears out all of his shoes. He says that he could mass produce something of less quality and make a lot of money, but it’s better to keep up a good reputation. He also notes that he often has to take long train trips for his work, and that his wife complains when he comes home smelling like alcohol instead of coming home early and playing with his daughter.
Here Roth contrasts Leo with Mr. Patimkin. While Mr. Patimkin has been able to achieve wealth and progress for his family, Leo has not been able to find the same success. He has some of the same markers of the class divide as Neil does. While the Patimkins have many nice cars (symbols of the American dream), Leo is unable to afford a car for himself and must take long train rides. It is clear he finds this demoralizing, because it often leads him to drink. This contributes to his lack of optimism about the present and the future, and it fuels his nostalgia for prior times in which he had found true happiness.
Themes
Leo asks Neil how much he thinks Leo makes in a week. Neil doesn’t know, and Leo says that a cab driver makes more than him. Leo continues to drunkenly ramble, describing the second good thing that happened to him: before he was married, he visited San Francisco and spent the night with a girl named Hannah Schreiber, who took him back to her room and gave him oral sex. He says that he can count the good things that have happened to him on his fingers. He then wonders why Mr. Patimkin has so much success, while he has nothing, and he concludes it’s because Mr. Patimkin was “born lucky.” He then goes silent, seeming to be about to cry.
Leo continues to illustrate how his nostalgia for the past is impeding his happiness in the present. He is so fixated on fleeting happy memories from the past that he even makes himself more upset, illustrating how nostalgia can be counterproductive. Additionally, his focus on the fact that Mr. Patimkin was simply “born lucky” again illustrates a fixation on the past rather than any attempt to make progress in the future.
Themes
Neil suggests to Leo that he go home. Leo agrees, and he says goodbye to Neil, saying he’ll go far. He says that next time he sees Neil, it’ll be Neil’s wedding. Neil then finds Brenda asleep in the hotel lobby. As he watches her sleeping, Neil thinks that he doesn’t really know her. He wakes her and they drive back to the Patimkins’ house. Neil thinks about how, in a few hours, Leo will be on a train, trying to find some luck in business. He thinks that the world is open to Leo if he wants, but he won’t pursue it for fear of new discomfort and sorrow. The next day, Neil drives Brenda to the train at noon, and she returns to school.
Neil again starts to approach more serious self-reflection, in realizing that he doesn’t really know Brenda and instead has been fixated on what she represents rather than who she actually is. Additionally, Roth puts a final point on the idea that Leo’s focus on the happiness in his past and the sorrow that he has experienced since those happy times prevents him from pursuing greater opportunity in the present and future.
Themes
