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European Political Cultures, Part 3. Goodbye to Berlin In European Studies: European political cultures, part 3. Goodbye to Berlin In this paper I am going to write a critical and reflective essay about the novel “Goodbye to Berlin”. For the analysis chapter I use the studied concepts, theories and the historical context. My work in this essay start with a short introduction on the novel "Goodbye to Berlin" and then I will combine the novel with main characters, the time, movie and music. On the last chapter of this essay, I will write my own reflection and my own opinion about the novel. The best way to achieve correct information about this novel is that to read relevant materials like books, movies, web pages and articles which can give correct information. Short facts Title: Goodbye to Berlin Author: Christopher Isherwood Country: Great Britannia and Germany Genre: Diary novel Year of publication: 1939 Main characters: Christopher, Sally, Otto, Natalia and Bernhard. Music: Cabaret Movie: Isherwood and his kind /Written by Aria Rezai, student at Malmö University. European Studies: European political cultures, part 3. Introduction "Goodbye to Berlin" is a novel that is written by the British author Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood. This novel takes place in Berlin between 1930 and 1933 and was published in English on 1939, and in Swedish on 1954 by translating of Tage Svensson and by Leif Janzon on 2009. This novel contains six chapters and each chapter is a short story about Isherwood’s daily experiences. The story starts from then he was travelling to Berlin until he left Berlin forever (Leijonhufvud 2009 and Montelius 2009). On 30th of the January 1933 Adolf Hitler took power in Germany, during his time the Jews in Germany were exposed for cruel discrimination and they got brutally persecute. During the 1930s Jews in Germany were gradually segregated from the rest of the non-Jews population. The Jews hadn’t same rights and opportunities as non-Jews population. Anti-Jewish laws and restrictions were executed. The anti-Jewish laws took away from the Jewish population their civil rights. Towards to the end of the 1930s, the violence against Jews increased incredibly. After the conquest of Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia between 1938-1939, the Nazism regime persecuted the Jews. An important part of anti-Jewish political thought was about the known race "Aryan race". It brings that Jews people were excluded from the labour market and economic life. Jewish companies were taking from them with violence and then the companies were driving by "non-judges". Successively the Jews got forbidden to work in different professions and they even deprived of all opportunities which could support them (Karlsson 2009). Aryan race had an idea of a society where only "pure and original" German citizens could live. According to Aryan race, the German`s race is the best and perfect race. In the movie "Isherwood And His Kind" and the novel "Goodbye to Berlin" clearly you can see how Nazism conquered all other nations and committed genocide to achieving “a pure German race”. I will explain more about the genocide on upcoming chapters. European Studies: European political cultures, part 3. Background of the novel Chapters one and six are about present time and other four chapters are about past. Basically, the whole novel is about Christopher Isherwood life`s story (Janzon 2010: 15). According to Isherwood, what you read in the novel is what he sees, "I'm a camera with open shutter, totally passive, mechanical recording." By this he means he could only behold what its happened in Berlin and wrote down what he could see (Sax 2011). In the following of this paper I just go through the important part of each chapters. Biography of Isherwood Christopher Isherwood was born in August 26, 1904 in a traditional "upper-class home". He died in January 4, 1986 in Santa Monica, California USA. His father, Frank Isherwood, belonged to "upper-class lifestyle" but he had relatively little money to be a person from "an upper-class family". Christopher was the second son (Izzo 2001: 4 fff). Christopher's mother, Kathleen, came from a wealthy family of business. Both parents encouraged Christopher's imagination by reading, writing and making magazines. Christopher studied history at Cambridge and then medicine in London. On 1928 he debuted the novel “All the conspirators” as his first work (Izzo 2001: 10 fff). Between 1929-1933 he lived in Berlin in Germany together with W.H. Auden, just before Adolf Hitler came to the power. This inspired him to the novel "Goodbye to Berlin" in 1939. The novel was later filmed as musical “Cabaret” (Izzo 2001: 13ff). European Studies: European political cultures, part 3. The main story The general content of this novel is written on the diary form and the novel contents six chapters that can be read as short stories. In this novel Isherwood is trying to describe his life because this novel is an autobiography of Isherwood's daily experiences during all trips in Germany on 1930th. That's why the main person in the novel is Isherwood. The first and last chapter both called 'A Berlin Diary', and these are told in the present time. In these chapters Isherwood telling about his return to Berlin, people he meets and the things that happening in his environment. He basically ends up with the same people and atmosphere as he had previously met in Berlin when he was there for first time. It will be a repetitive moment for Isherwood, though with minor changes, namely the cessation of Hitler's power and time difference since he was there (Norton 2010). In this comeback, Isherwood also noticed the fascism and Nazism extreme increase in Berlin. Isherwood got emotional and felt sham on Nazim who treated the Jews people inhumanity way. In this novel Isherwood writes “shame, shame…” because he saw how Nazism took power in Berlin by stamp on other ethnic groups, for example Jews people. In order to understand the Nazism behaviour its needs to explain what Nazism stand for. According to Herbert Tingsten, Nazism are created by groups of people who are extremist national socialists. Nazism are like anti-democratic and authoritarian ideologies. Their power is characterized by strong nationalism and the idea of the strongest has the right. Government needs are more important than people's needs. The state has the right to have full control over the population. Based on this ideology, the state takes the right of freedom and freedom of expression, because the purpose of the state dominates and has more value than the population's purpose (Tingsten 1965). The other chapters are "Sally Bowles", "On Ruegen Island (Summer 1931)", "The Nowak's" and "The Landauer's". In these chapters, the stories are told in the past. These chapters are about some characters which Isherwood meets. But the focus in these chapters turns more on those characters life time (Norton 2010). For example, Sally Bowles is one of those characters that Isherwood begins to get to know him in Berlin, when he randomly ends up in a nightclub. She is a nightclub singer who always is “in love affairs”, but she never succeeds in falling in love with anyone permanently. She easily falls in love with handsome and wealthy men and she thinks that these men’s want to marry her just European Studies: European political cultures, part 3. because she has had quickly sexual contacts with these men. According to Bowles, Isherwood is the real and a dear man that she ever met in her life because Isherwood never seen her as a sexual pleasure. She knows that Isherwood is also interested of her but because of Isherwood's homosexually interest they cannot be a couple. Bowles therefore called their friendship as a strange contact, because the contact was something between love and just a simple friendship (Norton 2010). In this novel Bowles describes as a famous woman because she was a good artist and she has a good voice. She sings very romantic and lovely songs. As soon she begins signing, the audience feels the love and gets calm. Her biography was interesting and beside of this she was a good singer which made movie producers to make a movie about her life. On 1972, Bob Fosse made a movie about Bowles life. The name of this movie was Cabaret. This movie won Oscar price later (IMDB 2017). Bowles's beauty and work made a great and positive influence on the visitor's feelings. Bowles's beauty, voice and art can be known as an aesthetic perspective. According to an aesthetic perspective (Scruton & Munro 2017) beauty is a property of a person, place, object or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure. This experience arises through sensual manifestations like color, personality, voice, style or rhythm. The subjective perception of beauty involves an interpretation of an entity's balance or harmony with nature, which can lead to attraction and emotional well-being. "Beauty is in the eyes of witnesses", this is a common phrase that expresses an impression of what is experienced. According to the philosopher Pythagoras, aesthetics beauty is about the philosophical study of beauty and taste. It is closely related to the philosophy of art, which is concerned with the nature of art and the concepts in terms of which individual works of art are interpreted and evaluated (Eco 2005: 61 fff). In the third chapter, Isherwood tries to describe about the gay couple Peter and Otto. Peter is a depressed British man who previously visited a psychologist because of his paranoid behaviour, but in the third chapter he seems happier because he recently met a new and young gay.
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