Christopher Isherwood's Goodbye To Berlin

In his semi-autobiographical work Goodbye to Berlin, Christopher Isherwood is often regarded

as playing the part of a passive, emotionally detached, uninterested third party. This interpretation,

encouraged by the first line in the passage, “I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive,

recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the

kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed” (9), is not

what Isherwood intended. Instead, the last line of the passage is inherently more useful for

understanding Isherwood’s intent: “Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed”

(9). Here, Isherwood seems to have meant the novel as a memoir to Berlin, a preservation

Another way in which knowledge of coming events influence Isherwood’s novel is seen in the

argument between Frl. Mayr and Frau Glanterneck: “It seems that Frau Glanterneck and Frl. Mayr once

had words on the stairs about Frl. Mayr’s Yodelling. Frau Glanterneck, perhaps because she is non-

Aryan, said she preferred the noises made by cats” (20). The conflict over Frl. Mayr’s yodeling is

humorous on one level. But, with knowledge of what soon will happen; which Isherwood, at the time of

publication, had access too, the scene is transformed into a more sinister, horrific example of the

prejudices facing Jews: “Thereby, she insulted not merely Frl. Mayr, but all Bavarian, all German women:

and it was Frl. Mayr’s pleasant duty to avenge them” (20). This describes the anti-Semitism the Nazi

community held for Jews. Also included is somewhat of a foreshadow to coming events, “This morning,

we hear that the neighbors have complained to the portress of the disturbance and that Frau

Glanterneck is to be seen with a black eye” (21), that will see Jews beaten, killed, and forced into

concentration