"Goodbye, Columbus" by Phillip Roth

Throughout Goodbye, Columbus, Phillip Roth continuously displays the ethnic social satire of Jewish people. As he clearly shows in his text, there is a distinct difference between middle-class Jews, upper-class Jews, Jews who acquired their wealth in America, and modern American Jews. Through the eyes of Neil Klugman, the protagonist of the novella, who is a middle-class Jew, Roth allows the reader to interpret the irony and satire of all four types of Jews that …

…abilities. As Roth ridicules the Jewish people in Goodbye, Columbus, he also derides the upper class, doing so ultimately when Neil decides to stay with his current life, and not join the "wealthy" life of the Patimkins'. After Neil's experiences of living two weeks with the Patimkins', he understood that this more affluent lifestyle was not for him, and that the road from Newark to Short Hills was one for him to never take again.