Despite the fact that The Inheritance introduces the reader to many characters who come in contact with Miguel de Roxas during his travels and adventures in Spain, Italy, France, Austria, and Switzerland, most of the attention centers on Miguel. His development is clearly the focus of the work as he matures from the proud, hotheaded, selfindulgent, and self-centered ladies' man of the early chapters into the respected doctor, husband, and father of the later chapters who can put his life in perspective and who has developed a mature outlook toward friend and foe alike. A Miguel who can say early in the novel that he is "bored by .. .

Spanish matters . . . since he was bent on an Italian career" and who likens the Jews to "bats" for whom he feels "a fleeting, somewhat exasperated compassion" and for whom he has little concern because of the...