Jordi Mendez-Paris

Professor Nochomovitz

FIQWS 10115

1 November 2023

Philip Roth’s “Goodbye, Columbus” is a Novela about the summer relationship between Neil and Brenda, its struggles, and how those issues led to its eventual ending in the fall. Neil is introduced as a character that is extremely self-aware and is gradually revealed to be a calculated individual, with the intention of dating Brenda to fulfill his desire to live a richer, more objectively desirable lifestyle—one which we can identify as the American Dream. Furthermore, Neil is entirely at fault for ruining the relationship he so desperately sought out, due to his emotions conflicting with his unfulfilled desire to live a luxurious lifestyle. However, others may argue that Brenda was the antagonist by actively creating conflict by using Neil’s own insecurities and love against him. Roth uses this relationship to argue that personal aspirations will always conflict with emotional connections, causing power struggles to arise and breed both resentment and anxiety, ultimately demonstrating how relationships founded on ulterior motives are destined to fail. 

Throughout the story, Philip Roth explores the clashes between personal desires, complex emotions, and contrasting views and lifestyles through the relationship between Neil and Brenda. At first sight, he was drawn to Brenda’s appearance, and subconsciously, her lifestyle. Brenda’s money is a source of conflict for Neil, with him experiencing the attraction to the money and physical attraction to Brenda, yet an envious feeling about her money and a hesitation to emotionally commit to Brenda. In an early conversation, she revealed to him she had a nose job, commenting “I’m afraid of my nose. I had it bobbed.” to which she questions, and she replies “It was bumpy… I was pretty. Now I’m prettier…We all look like my father.” (Roth 13). Brenda subtly reveals the insecurity of her ethnicity with the comments about her nose and how her and her siblings look like their father. Although seemingly insignificant, this conversation does show that Brenda is ashamed of her Jewish background, making degrading comments on her natural features and masking it with surgery. Neil is a Jewish man of a working-class background, and he does not see eye-to-eye with Brenda on this at all. After hearing that Brenda paid $1000, he replies “Let me see if you got your money’s worth.” (Roth 14). In response, Brenda asks “If I let you kiss me will you stop being so nasty?”, to steer away from the conversation, knowing that Neil disapproved of the surgery since he embraces his culture, but it is implied that he doesn’t agree with getting the expensive surgery given his tone (Roth 14). Despite their mutual annoyance, they quickly change the topic, which foreshadows their unwillingness to be emotionally available and cooperative.

When Brenda brings Neil over for a week, he is more excited about the luxurious life he’ll experience than he is to be with Brenda. When talking to Aunt Gladys and his family at home, he claims “I get everything I want here. I’m just taking a vacation. Don’t I deserve a vacation?” (Roth 57). Neil even stays an extra week than he was originally planned to stay due to him pestering Brenda, proving he’s driven to stay with her due to the lifestyle she provides him. Even her degrading comments such as “You’re not what I’d bring home.”, doesn’t seem to faze Neil. This suggests that she sees Neil as an unconventional choice that deviates from her family’s expectations. Furthermore, Neil’s ulterior motive is evident when he remains reluctant to let go of Brenda even when he has reservations about her and her family, symbolized by the Patimkin home—which represents his desire to be of a higher economic class. He attempts to ignore that Brenda and her family look down on him, but it doesn’t work.

Another form of the power struggle that presents itself in the relationship is Neil’s attempt to use a diaphragm as a form of control on Brenda. Simply put, the diaphragm is intended to serve as a symbol of Brenda’s commitment to Neil. During the conversation, Brenda recognizes that Neil wants to begin exerting his control over her when he says “Brenda, I want you to own one for…for the sake of my pleasure… Do it because I asked you to.” (Roth pp. 79-83) However, this creates a big argument between them in which Neil once again reveals his insecurity. Neil says “Oh, Brenda you’re such an egotistical b*tch! You’re the one thinking who’s thinking about last summer about an end for us. In fact, that’s the whole thing isn’t it.” (Roth 82). This is a recurring topic, the first time Neil stating “I wanted to get back to Brenda, for I worried once again…she would not be there when I returned.”(Roth 53)  Neil’s insecurity of Brenda leaving him and taking away the luxurious life he successfully sought out from her and is experiencing with her is represented by this argument, in which the words he chooses to say is meant to project his fears onto Brenda, causing her to have a breakdown and for him to gain control since she eventually gives in. 

Roth uses the relationship to argue that the constant tension between personal objectives and emotional attachments leads to the creation of power struggles, which generate sentiments of anger and anxiety. Although Neil and Brenda did seem to love each other, the power struggle existed because they always had opposing views. Neil was aware that their relationship wasn’t sustainable, noted by his anxiety about being dumped and his apathy toward Brenda in general. Brenda felt the same, given the number of conflicts they both had surrounding each other, their views, lifestyle, actions, etc. This exemplifies how relationships based on hidden agendas are bound to fail. Despite the connection they both claimed to have they were incompatible. Furthermore, Roth successfully utilized the relationship to show that romantic relationships will never work once power struggles are established and cause personalities, desires, and insecurities to constantly clash.

Works Cited

Roth, Philip. Goodbye, Columbus. Houghton Miffin, 1959.