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Goodbye, Columbus

Phillip RothÆs ôGoodbye, Columbusö is a novella that features protagonist Neil Klugman. Klugman is a college graduate who works at the Lamont Library. A philosophy major, Neil has tried to find meaning in philosophy but he can find none. He rails throughout the novella at the trappings of pleasure and wealth, but he becomes enslaved by them. In actuality, even though Neil expresses disdain and even disgust for the wealthy Patimkins he ultimately becomes just like them. NeilÆs inability to achieve a life of adventure and meaning like Columbus or the Negro boy in his dream of a Tahitian paradise stems from his own inability to mold himself. In essence, NeilÆs pride and ego prevent him from being immune to the people and forces about him which leave him empty and unfulfilled.

As the narrator, Neil tries to inform us of his story and the way he lives it. Neil is from a Newark ghetto and works at a library. He engages in a relationship with a girl named Brenda Patimkin, whose family is upper middle-class. During the course of the novella, Neil seems to be torn between two worlds. We see this inability to know which world to choose in his depictions of Brenda. At times, he imagines her to be the stuff of high romance and adventure, comparable to his dreams of Tahiti. In this view Brenda is like an angel surrounded by shining leaves. She is also like the goddess Diana, someone who by her presence in it transforms swimming pool water into marble. However, we see that Neil also has a negative view of Brenda as a girl with ôhigh walls of ego that rose, buttresses and all, between her and her knowledge of herselfö (Roth 13).

In actuality, Neil is the one who has a wall of ego and pride that separate him from knowledge of himself. We see that Neil quite often lies about himself. He tells Brenda, ôIÆm not planning anything. IÆm not a planner. IÆm a liverö (Roth 36). We know that this is definitely not the case...

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Goodbye, Columbus. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 13:05, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1711131.html