Goodbye to Berlin Themes

The intensity of the friendship between Christopher Isherwood and Sally Bowles in Goodbye to Berlin illustrates the idea that friendships can be just as (if not more) complicated and impactful than romantic relationships. In fact, friendships are often the defining relationships in one’s life. As Christopher navigates Berlin, he searches for social connections. When he meets Sally Bowles, the two immediately like each other and begin to spend all their time together, often making plans…

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…

The attitude of the characters in Goodbye to Berlin toward money emphasizes the insecure nature of the economy in 1930s Germany and shows the consequences that this insecurity had on the German political landscape. These consequences manifest in the behavior of individual characters in the book, who gravitate towards political extremism as a result of this instability. From the beginning of the novel, the German characters often reference the Inflation that followed World War I…

Christopher Isherwood’s semi-autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin highlights the decadent culture of Berlin’s nightlife in the late 1920s and early 1930s, juxtaposing the culture of creativity, artistry, and relaxed social norms that characterized Germany’s urban scene in the years before Hitler’s rise to power. During the early part of his time in Berlin, Christopher and his friends constantly go out to nightclubs, drinking and partying late into the night. Christopher and Sally spend their…