Similar to many Singer characters, Herman is a victim of society and of himself. He is haunted by hallucinations and nightmares of Nazis still chasing him. As he attempts to escape and to assimilate into American life, he becomes a ghost writer for a rabbi and involves himself with a mistress, a former friend from the concentration camp. When his lover obtains a divorce, he marries her too. Unknown to Herman, his first wife miraculously has survived and immigrated to America.

He rationalizes his misery by saying that "after what I've been through, what I have is no longer part of this world." As a result, lust becomes his new religion and, incapable of making decisions for himself, Herman digs his own grave.

Yadwiga, the Polish girl who saved him from the Nazis and later married him, is at first portrayed as a lowly alien, who speaks little...