Goodbye To Berlin Summary and Analysis PDF

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Goodbye To Berlin Summary and Analysis

Overview Christopher Isherwood’s novel, Goodbye to Berlin, was first published in 1939. The novel’s narrator, who is also named Christopher Isherwood, recounts his experiences living in Berlin, Germany from 1929 to 1933. Isherwood focuses the novel on the relationships he has with his friends and acquaintances and explores both the beautiful and unseemly parts of the city he calls home, all while the rise of Nazi influence grows steadily in the background. Goodbye to Berlin’s chapters are divided episodically, rather than strictly chronologically. Each chapter tends to focus on a main character, a particular location, or a certain family, and each chapter is connected to the rest. As a whole, the novel presents Berlin itself as a character, with its own personality and evolutions. Christopher Isherwood, our narrator, has moved to Germany to work on his novel. We meet Frl. Schroeder, Isherwood’s comical landlady, and we get to know the various eccentricities of the other tenants Isherwood shares a flat with in Berlin. Chapter 1, “A Berlin Diary: Autumn 1930,” details life at Frl. Schroeder’s as a comedy of errors. Frl. Schroeder and Frl. Mayr gossip about the neighbors and consult fortunetellers. Bobby (whose real name Isherwood doesn’t know) is a flirty bartender who tickles and slaps Frl. Schroeder’s behind. Frl. Kost is a prostitute whose best customer is a Japanese man who doesn’t speak much German and likes to lie in bed with her and listen to the gramophone. When Isherwood meets Sally Bowles through a mutual friend, Sally becomes like a bossy older sister to Isherwood, despite her young age. Sally has many affairs with many “marvelous” lovers and isn’t shy about sharing this information, though she regrets never being able to keep a man for very long. Sally thinks she is an ideal kind of woman—the kind of woman who can steal any man from another woman, but can’t ultimately make him stay with her because once he’s gotten her, he will discover that it isn’t what he actually wanted all along. Sally is thankful that Isherwood isn’t in love with her because she believes it would spoil their friendship. Over the course of the chapter, Sally gets pregnant by a man she thought she loved and who she thought loved her. Isherwood helps Sally to get an abortion without telling the father of the child. After a fight over a magazine article, Sally calls Isherwood for help again. She’s ended up sleeping with and accepting the marriage proposal of a 16-year-old con artist. Isherwood accompanies her to the police station to report the crime.

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Over the summer, Isherwood stays at a beach house on the Baltic in the hopes of working more seriously on his novel. He stays with a gay couple, Peter and Otto, who are struggling to define exactly what their relationship is against a backdrop of Nazi antagonism. Peter and Otto fight about Otto’s promiscuity and flirtatious behavior at dances. Peter is often jealous of Otto, and Otto feels suffocated by Peter. Eventually, Otto leaves the beach house to return to Berlin without warning. Peter leaves for England, and Isherwood, having no one left for company at the beach house, decides he will return to Berlin. Isherwood falls on some hard times and agrees to live with Otto’s family, the Nowaks, for the time being. The Nowaks live in a slum and Isherwood finds the conditions there increasingly intolerable. The Nowaks are childish and argumentative. Otto and Frau Nowak often fight loudly and Otto teases Frau Nowak about Grete, his sister, and Lothar, his brother. Herr Nowak is often drunk and seems to take this all in magnanimously. Frau Nowak gets news that she is to leave for a sanatorium to help with her illness she suffers from. Before she leaves, she and Otto have a big fight, which results in Otto attempting to take his own life. Isherwood eventually leaves the Nowaks but accompanies Otto to visit Frau Nowak at the sanatorium. After a Nazi demonstration results in the smashing of several Jewish shop windows, Isherwood writes to Frau Landauer requesting to see her. The Landauers own a department store, which was one of the shops that was attacked. In addition to Herr and Frau Landauer, Isherwood meets Natalia, their 18-year-old daughter, and her cousin, Bernhard. Natalia is interested in art and literature and is excited to talk with Isherwood about these things. She becomes frustrated with Isherwood when she senses Isherwood isn’t sharing his sincere feelings and opinions with her. Natalia would one day like to live in Paris and study art. Bernhard manages the Landauers’ department store and feels like a slave to his position there. Bernhard and Isherwood visit each other quite a bit; Isherwood believes Bernhard has an arrogant way of talking to people. Bernard eventually opens up to Isherwood and shares intimate details of his childhood with him. Later, Bernhard receives death threats in the mail. When Isherwood leaves Berlin for the last time, he hears news that Bernhard is dead. People believe that police and the press are covering up his death and that Nazis murdered him. Isherwood goes on a farewell tour of all the “dives” Fritz Wendel likes to visit. In the process, Isherwood shares anecdotes about the people and places he would be leaving behind when he finally decides to leave Berlin for good. The Nazis’ conquest of Germany is nearly complete. Hitler is in power and Isherwood fears that many of his friends and students are

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in jail or dead.

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Summary: “A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)” The novel opens with Christopher Isherwood, our narrator, looking out of his window, noting scenes of city life in Berlin. He is an Englishman and feels alone in the foreign city. Isherwood describes Frl. Schroeder, his landlady, who is about 55 years old and calls him “Herr Issyvoo.” At one point in time, Frl. Schroeder used to be an independently wealthy woman and was very picky about people she took in as lodgers. Frl. Schroeder now has no room of her own in her own house; she sleeps in the living room behind a screen. Frl. Schroeder has heard that Isherwood was once a medical student and confides in him that she is unhappy about size of her bosom and the strain it puts on her heart. There are four other lodgers staying in the flat with Isherwood: Frl. Kost, Frl. Mayr, Bobby, and a commercial traveler. Frl. Kost is a prostitute, Bobby is a mixer at a west-end bar called the Troika, and Frl. Mayr is a music-hall jodlerin. Isherwood rarely sees the commercial traveler at all. Bobby is rather intimate with Frl. Schroder. He often tickles her and slaps her bottom. Frl. Mayr and Frl. Schroeder like to consult cards and fortunetellers together. Frl. Mayr is also an ardent Nazi and does not like Frau Glanterneck, a Galician Jewess who lives in the flat below Frl. Schroeder. Frau Glanterneck once insulted Frl. Mayr’s singing and in retaliation, Frl. Mayr wrote anonymous letter to Frau Glanterneck’s husband-to-be, detailing several lies about her. Isherwood is a private English tutor. His first pupil in Berlin was Frl. Hippi, who lives in a very wealthy neighborhood. Frl. Hippi is less interested in learning English than she is in flirting with Isherwood. Frl. Hippi “never worries about the future” (19) and is mostly unconcerned with the “political situation” (19) happening in her country. A series of events soon disrupts the relative peace of Frl. Schroeder’s flat. It begins when Frl. Kost reports a fifty-mark note has gone missing from her room. Frl. Schroeder first suggests that one of Frl. Kost’s clients took it and then suggests Kost is lying to avoid paying rent. Angry, Frl. Kost announces she will vacate her room at the end of the month. Isherwood later accidentally discovers that Frl. Kost and Bobby are having an affair. Frl. Schroeder becomes

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very jealous about the affair when she finds out. She eventually makes a scene when Frl. Kost won’t leave the bathroom when Isherwood needs to use it (much to Isherwood’s embarrassment). Frl. Schroeder is so worked up that she begins to have heart palpitations and Frl. Mayr ends up having to take charge of the situation to help Frl. Schroeder calm herself.

Chapter 1 Analysis Isherwood uses diary entries as a framing device for his novel. In Chapter 1, Isherwood observes life in Berlin through the lens of Frl. Schroeder’s apartment. We are introduced to a small cast of characters occupying the apartment along with Isherwood and observe their relationships and dynamics. Even though this chapter is called “A Berlin Diary,” it lacks any of the confessional feeling that most diaries have. Instead, Isherwood is content to report the daily activities of Frl. Schroeder, Frl. Kost, Frl. Mayr, and Bobby, rather than pass judgment or express emotion. Even though Isherwood is far from home, the concerns of the people he lives with are universal: concerns with rent, what are the neighbors up to, what are the roommates up to, and what to do for fun. Perhaps this sentiment is embodied best in Frl. Hippi, Isherwood’s student. When Frl. Hippi asks Isherwood why he’s come to Germany, Isherwood replies that it’s because “the political and economic situation […] is more interesting in Germany than in any other European country” (17). Frl. Hippi, however, doesn’t care about any of this. She responds, “I think it shall be dull for you here? You do not have many friends in Berlin, no?” (17). A reader will likely come to this book knowing the historical trajectory that Germany is on during the year 1930, but for the people going about the logistics of their everyday lives in the story, it’s largely irrelevant. It seems appropriate, then, that from the next chapter on, the novel focuses on the relationship Isherwood has with his friends in Berlin.

Chapter 2 Chapter 2 Summary: “Sally Bowles” Isherwood’s friend, Fritz Wendel, introduces Isherwood to Sally Bowles, an English actress who sings at the Lady Windermere. Sally and Isherwood make plans to see each other again, but Isherwood initially believes Sally has (wrongly) assumed that Isherwood is a wealthy man after hearing Sally gossip about her past affairs. Isherwood meets Sally at her apartment and Sally tells Isherwood about how she came to Berlin: she moved from England with her friend, Diana, an older actress and “the most

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marvelous gold-digger you can imagine” (30). Diana eventually moved to Paris with a banker and left Sally in Berlin. Sally also tells Isherwood that she is 19 years old—Isherwood had believed she was about 25. Isherwood doesn’t understand why Sally is living where she’s living and believes Sally could get a much better apartment for the money she’s paying. Sally explains that she doesn’t want to leave her apartment because she gets along with the landlady well and fears the landlady would commit suicide if Sally left her. Sally makes it a point to tell Isherwood that she has never slept with Fritz and that she knows Isherwood isn’t rich. When Sally visits Isherwood at his place for tea, she casually mentions that she “didn’t sleep a wink last night” (34) because of her new lover. Isherwood believes Sally tries to trick people into either approving or disapproving of her behavior by shocking them with talk of her lovers. He goes on to say, “I wish you wouldn’t try it on me, because it only makes me feel embarrassed” (35). Sally then explains, “I don’t believe that a woman can be a great actress who hasn’t had any love-affairs” (35). Sally wants to make sure that Isherwood likes her but isn’t in love with her. Isherwood confirms that he likes Sally but isn’t in love with her. Sally is relieved. She says, “I’m glad you’re not in love with me, because, somehow, I couldn’t possibly be in love with you—so, if you had been, everything would have been spoilt” (36). Sally comes to live at Frl. Schroeder’s on New Year’s Eve after catching Frau Karpf, her old landlady, stealing from her. Sally begins seeing Klaus Linke, a young pianist who used to accompany Sally when she sang at the Lady Windermere. Sally confides in Isherwood that she is in love with Klaus. Klaus leaves suddenly for England after getting a job offer synchronizing music for films. Sally slips into a mild depression after Klaus leaves. She eventually tells Isherwood that she could never marry Klaus because it would ruin their careers. Klaus writes letters to Sally describing how he wished Sally was there with him. In the letter, he tells Sally to work hard because work will cheer her up and keep her from getting depressed. Despite this, Isherwood says, “From the first, the letter left a nasty taste in my mouth” (41). Sally receives another letter from Klaus. This time, he refers to Sally as “his poor dear child” (42) and that they must part ways because Sally adored him too much. Should they continue

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to be together, he writes, she “would soon have no will and no mind of [her] own” (42). Work, according to Klaus, is the only thing that matters. At the end of the letter, Klaus explains that he met a young English girl named Miss Gore Eckersley. Klaus is attracted to her intelligence and says he has never met a girl “who could understand my mind so well as she does” (43). Sally is angry with Klaus but also feels sorry for him, “in a motherly sort of way” (43). Sally says she will become a great actress just to show Klaus. However, Sally also expresses regret about not being able to keep a man. She thinks that she really did love Klaus. Sally becomes more and more restless and agitated as the days go on. She tells Isherwood that she thinks she might be pregnant, but neither believes this too seriously. Sally and Isherwood meet a man named Clive at the Troika and begin to see him often. Clive is a heavy drinker and says he drinks because he is unhappy. Sally soon begins drinking nearly as much as Clive. Clive is very wealthy and careless with his money and both Sally and Isherwood believe that Clive will put up the money to launch Sally’s stage career. Clive decides that the three of them will travel the globe together, but the next morning, when Sally and Isherwood arrive at Clive’s hotel, they discover that Clive has left for Budapest. He has left three 100-mark notes for them in an envelope. Sally again laments the fact that all men leave her. Sally says she’s “sick of being a whore” (52) and that she’ll “never look at a man with money again” (52). The next morning, Sally is very ill and Isherwood and Frl. Schroeder send for a doctor. When the doctor leaves, Sally informs Isherwood that she’s pregnant. The child is likely Klaus’s and she plans to terminate the pregnancy. Sally makes Isherwood promise not to tell Klaus. Sally finds a doctor willing to write her a certificate confirming that the state of her health has made it impossible for her to undergo the risks of childbirth and is moved into a nursing home to have the abortion. Sally tells the staff of the nursing home that Isherwood is the father of the child. Later, Sally expresses some remorse about not having the child and tells Isherwood that she spent the night prior holding a cushion, imagining it was her child. Isherwood leaves for the Baltic during the summer so that he can focus on his writing. When he returns to Berlin in July, he finds that Sally has given up her room at Frl. Schroeder’s. When Isherwood meets with Sally, he notices that she seems to have made many more male acquaintances.

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Sally later calls Isherwood and asks him to write an article for her to be published in a magazine. She had originally agreed to write the article herself, but she only wants the article published so as not to disappoint the publisher, a man who “may be terribly useful […] in other ways, later on” (62). Isherwood completes the article, but Sally tells him it isn’t what the publisher is looking for. She instead calls up Kurt Rosenthal, a young scenario writer for the cinema, and asks him to do the job. Sally tells Isherwood he seems to have changed and lacks energy and calls him a “dilettante” (64). Sally then tells Isherwood that she thinks they’ve outgrown each other. Isherwood is furious at himself and with Sally. He is angry that he was jealous of Kurt and angry that Sally had made him feel like a sham, even though Isherwood acknowledges that in some ways he is a sham. Isherwood believes it will be impossible to see Sally again after this. A man who says his name is George P. Sandars visits Isherwood. Sandars asks Isherwood for 200 marks to help him start a business. After Isherwood refuses, the man asks Isherwood if he knows any actresses, as he’s selling a new kind of face cream popular in Hollywood. Isherwood gives the man Sally’s address but instructs him not to tell her that Isherwood sent him. Sally calls Isherwood a few days later and tells him that she needs to see him about a serious matter and that he’s “the only person who can possibly help” (68). Sally tells Isherwood about a man who came to see her and promised her a job as an actress. Sally ended up going to dinner with this man, lending him money, and eventually sleeping with him. The next morning, the man left her at a hotel and took the rest of her money with him. After describing the man to Isherwood, Isherwood realizes that it’s the same man who came asking him for 200 marks. Sally and Isherwood go to the police station together to report the crime. The officers listening to Sally recount the events are shocked by her casualness about the illicit and sexual details of the night. Sally tells the police that the man was her fiancé—apparently he had proposed that night. Isherwood thinks Sally is joking about this detail until Sally tells him that it’s true. When the police arrest the man, they discover he’s 16 years old. Isherwood tells Sally, “What I really like about you is that you’re awfully easy to take in. People who never get taken in are so dreary” (76). The chapter closes by Isherwood saying it was the last time he saw Sally. He later received a postcard from her from Paris and then from Rome and then that was it.

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Chapter 2 Analysis Chapter 2 charts the course of Isherwood’s relationship with Sally Bowles. Sally is a young woman who wants certain things from life: she wants to be a successful actress, she wants to be wealthy, she wants to be in love, and she wants to be loved in return. For Sally, all of these things are intertwined. For instance, Sally believes that in order for her to be a successful actress, she needs to have several love affairs. However, the more hastily she pursues these love affairs, the more likely she is to be taken advantage of (as is the case with Sally’s encounter with the 16-year-old con artist at the end of the chapter). Sally regularly engages in self-defeating behavior. In Sally’s view, a man needs to fall in love with her so that she can make him stay. This is a point Sally reiterates over and over again: that she can’t keep a man. However, it seems that Sally’s version of love is based more in infatuation and a calculation of how much use the other person can be to her. Paradoxically, Isherwood seems to be able to stick with Sally and develop a deep (albeit non-romantic) relationship with her because of the fact he isn’t in love with her. This is most likely uncomfortable for Sally, who conceives of her independence and power to be based on her ability to make men desire and fall for her. It might then explain why Sally eventually attempts to push Isherwood away by pitting him against Rosenthal and to then leave Berlin suddenly and unexpectedly.

Chapter 3 Chapter 3 Summary: “On Ruegen Island (Summer 1931)” Isherwood spends the summer of 1931 in a beach house on Ruegen Island with Peter Wilkinson, an Englishman about Isherwood’s age, and Otto Nowak, a German working-class boy of about 16 or 17. Isherwood describes how, earlier in his life, Peter had difficulties with s...