The many representations of storytelling in Goodbye to Berlin highlight the ways that people use storytelling to define and understand themselves. Significantly, the novel itself is a fictionalized representation of Christopher Isherwood’s time living in Berlin in the 1930s. This fact highlights the importance of storytelling as a means of record-keeping and art-making. In addition, throughout the novel, characters often lie or bend the truth to make themselves appear a certain way. For example, before Christopher first meets Sally Bowles, their mutual friend Fritz Wendel tells him that Sally’s mother is French. When Christopher asks her about this, she claims that Fritz must be confused. However, later on, she admits to Christopher that she had told Fritz this fact, even though both of her parents are English. Presumably, Sally wanted to appear more interesting or cultured to Fritz. Christopher vows to keep her secret, showing that he understands why she lied.
Later in the novel, when Christopher lives with the Nowak family, the reader sees another instance when a character warps the truth. When Christopher asks Otto Nowak if he is still in touch with Peter Wilkinson, Otto says that Peter hurt him very much by leaving him. However, as Christopher (and the reader) knows from earlier events, Otto is the one who left Peter. Otto’s lie, which he possibly believes himself, is another example of a character’s tendency to stretch the truth in order to appear a certain way. In this case, Otto absolves himself from being the villain of his relationship with Peter by effectively rewriting the events of their farewell. Both Otto and Sally bend the truth to conform to a certain narrative and shape the way others see them. In this way, then, Goodbye to Berlin highlights the role that storytelling plays in understanding others, oneself, and the world in which one exists.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Storytelling ThemeTracker
Storytelling Quotes in Goodbye to Berlin
I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.
Sally’s German was not merely incorrect; it was all her own. She pronounced every word in a mincing, specifically “foreign” manner. You could tell that she was speaking a foreign language from her expression alone.
When you read this, Sally—if you ever do—please accept it as a tribute, the sincerest I can pay, to yourself and to our friendship.
And send me another postcard.
That evening Peter walked along regent street and picked up a whore. They went back together to the girl’s room, and talked for hours. He told her the whole story of his life at home, gave her ten pounds and left her without even kissing her.
“You see, Christoph… Peter hurt me very much. I thought he was my friend. And then, suddenly, he left me—all alone…”
My mouth pressed against Erna’s hot, dry lips. I had no particular sensation of contact: all this was part of the long, rather sinister symbolic dream which I seemed to have been dreaming throughout the day. “I’m so happy, this evening…” Erna whispered.
I catch sight of my face in the mirror of a shop, and am horrified to see that I am smiling. You can’t help smiling, in such beautiful weather. The trams are going up and down the Kleistrasse, just as usual. They, and the people on the pavement, and the tea-cosy dome of the Nollendorfplatz station have an air of curious familiarity, of striking resemblance to something one remembers as normal and pleasant in the past—like a very good photograph.
No. Even now I can’t altogether believe that any of this has really happened…
