Goodbye Columbus, ch.3

Parallels:While Neil is in the Patimkin household, He feels out of place and like he is not at the same level as the rest of the Patimkin family. In likeliness to the help, it is assumed of him that he will do things without question as if it was, in this case its babysitting Julie while the rest of the family is out. " I felt like Carlota; no, not even as comfortable as that" (40).Neil is supposed to be a guest and yet he feels as though he is not treated as one and has responsibilities assumed for him. " I would have poured myself a drink- as a wicked wage for being forced into servantry-"(42).

Okay now I'm going to be sneaky and write another parallel that I found interesting but it's almost a contrast in a way as well because we will see it from the perspective of a poor colored boy versus the wealthy Patimkin family.
On page 37, we have the scene with the young lion tamer boy looking at the large Gauguin book. Gauguin's style in his paintings tend to use a lot of rosey pink tones and cheery colors, and yet at the same time "they ain't no yelling or shouting here, you could just see it". The images are peaceful and colorful. Again on page 42 Neil sees the three colored photo- paintings of the Patimkin children, all painted in a matter much like Gauguin, "smothered back of gobs of pink and white". It is as though the Patimkins are "living the fucking life", the life that has no shouting or yelling.

Props:
     - Cement Lions
     -Miss Winney's stool
     -Gauguin book
     -Paintings
     -Fruit: This stood out as the most important prop to take not of in this chapter. In chapter one, Neil talks about fruit and how he loves it and his Aunt Gladys is always worried about fruit going bad in the fridge ( therefore wasting food as well as money) . Things are different though at the Patimkin household where they have an entire large refrigerator swelling with solely fruit. They don't need to worry about it spoiling. Fruit is like a symbol of wealth here, as well as luxury.

Class Consciousness: The scene on page 35 might be one of the most racist scenes I've read in memory... When John McKee is talking about the colored boy in the library who is in the art section to look at the Gauguin books, he assumes the worst of him because he is black. He refers to the blacks as THEY and acts as though there is no way that a black person could love or appreciate art, as if thats out of their capacity.