The Gold-Rimmed Eyeglasses: Analysis of Major Characters

Author: Giorgio Bassani

First published: Gli occhiali d'oro, 1958 (The Gold-Rimmed Spectacles, 1960; revised as The Gold-Rimmed Eyeglasses, 1975)

Genre: Novel

Locale: Ferrara and Rimini, Italy

Plot: Social realism

Time: The 1930's

The narrator, a young man of age twenty (at the time of the main events of the story), a member of a middle-class Jewish family of Ferrara and a student of literature at the University of Bologna. He is becoming aware of the impact of Fascism on his family and on all Jews. Sensitive and sympathetic to the trials of other Jews, yet barely grasping what the growing anti-Semitism of the Fascist regime may mean to Italian Jews, he witnesses the torments of Dr. Fadigati, who is in his own way just as much an outsider as the narrator is going to be in Italian Fascist society.

Dr. Athos Fadigati (AHT-ohs fah-dee-GAH-tee), an ear, nose, and throat specialist who came from Venice and settled in Ferrara. Middle-aged and overweight, Fadigati became somewhat of a society doctor, for a time, until his penchant for young men became known. He takes one of the narrator's friends to Riccione, on the Adriatic Sea, for a vacation, and is more or less despised by other families. As an outsider, he attracts the narrator's pity, especially when the boy whom Fadigati takes to the seashore absconds with all of Fadigati's money. The doctor by then has lost much of his fashionable clientele, and eventually he takes his own life.

Eraldo Deliliers (ehr-AHL-doh deh-lee-LEE-ehrz), a young schoolmate of the narrator, a handsome young boy who is admired by all of his classmates. There is a thread of opportunism to his character. When he takes up with Dr. Fadigati, that seems to seal his fate, and even though the narrator sympathizes with him and converses with him at Riccione, Deliliers is interested only in the best opportunities for his own welfare. He leaves Fadigati at Riccione, having stolen all the doctor's money and papers, and ends up in Paris.

Signora Lavezzoli (lah-vehz-ZOH-lee), a leading member of the Lavezzoli family, vacationing at Riccione. Originally from Pisa, she is married to a lawyer who is an expert in civil law. She represents the kind of people who welcome and support the growth of the Fascist state in Italy and who approve of the increasingly severe measures of the Benito Mussolini regime. She despises Dr. Fadigati, and, although she is a friend of the narrator's family, she seems to approve of the coming repression of Jews. Although her husband is no supporter of the Fascists, he says nothing as she praises Mussolini and the government.

The narrator's father, a harried businessman of broad interests who pretends that the changes in Italian society cannot be too bad and who hopes that the Fascists will not be as dangerous as the Nazis in Germany. He treats Dr. Fadigati with respect, despite the contempt of others for the man. The narrator feels pity for his father, who is hoping against hope that all will be well.