Guests
Bellow explains, “Most of the guests at the Hotel Gloriana were past the age of retirement. Along Broadway in the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties, a great part of New York's vast population of old men and women lives. Unless the weather is too cold or wet they fill the benches about the tiny railed parks and along the subway gratings from Verdi Square to Columbia University, they crowd the shops and cafeterias, the dime stores, the tearooms, the bakeries, the beauty parlors, the reading rooms and club rooms" (1-2). We see old people, retired and mostly free from the vicissitudes of life—decidedly in contrast to Wilhelm, who, while young and active, is stuck in the rat race and gets easily frustrated with the old people around him.
Wilhelm’s Father
Bellow writes, “The handsome old doctor stood well above the other old people in the hotel. He was idolized by everyone. This was what people said: 'That's old Professor Adler, who used to teach internal medicine. He was a diagnostician, one of the best in New York, and had a tremendous practice. Isn't he a wonderful-looking old guy? It's a pleasure to see such a fine old scientist, clean and immaculate. He stands straight and understands every single thing you say. He still has all his buttons. You can discuss any subject with him'" (9). We are meant to see Dr. Adler as a strikingly different figure than his son, who is fleshy, messy, haphazardly dressed, and not at all put together.
Wilhelm's Fears
Wilhelm becomes increasingly depressed as the day goes on, feeling nervous about his investment and distressed at the way his father treats him. He feels like "the waters of the earth are going to roll over me" (73), an effective image to convey how he thinks the whole world is against him, how the forces conspiring to destroy him are powerful in an elemental, incomprehensible way.
Tamkin
Wilhelm observes Tamkin with precision: "what a rare peculiar bird he was, with those pointed shoulders, that bare head, his loose nails, almost claws, and those brown, soft, deadly, heavy eyes" (78). Through this evocative image, which compares Tamkin to a bird of prey, we can sense Tamkin's cleverness, the danger he poses to the soft creatures around him.
