The author uses the main character, Lawrence Newman, as the focal point for anti-Semitism in his epic novel. It is through Newman’s eyes that the hostile New York Jew-hating environment of the 1940�

There is the constant battle of conscious versus subconscious in Newman’s mind. The glasses serve as a means to reveal his hidden subconscious. Newman has for so long lived to society’s standards. Others have installed everything he is conscious of, including his attitude towards Jews and anti-Semitism. Periodically throughout the novel it is noticed that Newman’s subconscious pokes through the obscured cloud of conscious. On a subway ride in the beginning of the story Newman reads graffiti on the walls, “Kikes started WAR. Kill kikes kill ki.” He feels almost threatened by these gripping words. His subconscious tells him that these “were a kind of mute record that the city automatically inscribed in her sleep; a secret newspaper publishing what the people really thought, undiluted by the fears of propriety and selfish interest.” Even without his glasses Newman often had second thoughts about anti-Semitism and society. Again, when he puts on the glasses he is able to become more and more aware of his subconscious. After his wife, Gertrude pleads with him to join up with the Christian front, to make it clear that he wasn’t a Jew, he responds, “I don’t know.” It is evident that Newman is deeply inflicted with what the right thing to do is. He tells his wife, “Sometimes I feel like I could almost murder them (Jews). But I can’t seem to say it anymore.”

At first, Newman has no clue to why his world is unraveling. He can’t understand how a simple pair of glasses can change how everybody perceives him. As Newman first looks at himself in the mirror the author tells, “the glasses did what he had feared they would do to his face…he was looking at what might very properly be called the face of a Jew.” Newman tries to ignore the fact that a pair of glasses can instantaneously change his entire appearance, but he can’t deny the reactions he gets from the rest of society. Newman undergoes an entire role-reversal.

Throughout the entire novel there are clues that hint towards Newman’s ultimate transformation. He is constantly confronted with questioning his own identity, where most of the time he is rather apathetic towards life. Even though Newman can be described as an anti-Semite in the beginning of the

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