In the dream Neil is Columbus, and the land he must leave is the world of Brenda. Neither the child nor Neil wants to leave, but neither can do anything about it. The women on the island throw leis at them and speak the concluding words of Ron's record. In a key dream Neil pictures himself and the child on a ship moving inexorably away from an island in the Pacific. Neil connects his trips to Short Hills with a black boy's coming to the library in Newark to look at a book of Gauguin's paintings of Tahiti.

But Neil ultimately rejects the Patimkin world. At Ron's wedding Ben says to Neil and Brenda, 'There's no business so big it can't use another head,' implying that, if Neil marries Brenda, he, too, will enter the business. When Ron decides to marry, he abandons his dream of being a physical education teacher to meet his 'responsibilities' by entering the Patimkin business. But it demands a sacrifice in return, for to become a part of that world he must, he feels, become a Patimkin. Neil, too, is a discoverer of a new world, the world of the Patimkins, one that promises fulfillment for all of his worldly dreams. It recounts the events of his senior year at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, and it ends with the words 'goodbye, Columbus … goodbye, Columbus … goodbye….' Yet the story's title also refers to Christopher Columbus. The title of the story derives from a record owned by Ron Patimkin, Brenda's brother. Neil contrasts this meal to those in his aunt's home, where Gladys feeds each person separately, one after the other. When he arrives, he is struck not only by the Patimkins' affluence but also by their athletic prowess and by their eating ability as they all gorge themselves at the table. As Neil drives there, he feels that he is approaching heaven. The Patimkins live in Short Hills, an affluent suburb. Living with his Aunt Gladys in the Jewish section of Newark, New Jersey, he meets and falls in love with Brenda Patimkin, daughter of Ben Patimkin, who made a fortune in kitchen and bathroom sinks. The story's central character and narrator, Neil Klugman, embodies all of these themes. 'Goodbye, Columbus' treats many of the themes for which Roth is best known: acculturation and assimilation of second-and third-generation Jews into American life their attempts to fulfill the American dream their relationship to their heritage, both American and European and the tension between wealth and intellect. The collection brought Philip Roth recognition as one of America's most important fiction writers. 'Goodbye, Columbus' first appeared in the autumn-winter 1958-59 issue of the Paris Review and shortly thereafter in Goodbye, Columbus, and Five Short Stories (1959).

Goodbye columbus and five short stories