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"ASHER LEV" NOVELS.   Term Paper ID:28253 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Analysis of philosophy of author Chaim Potok depicted in 2 novels. Conflict between Lev's Jewish culture & his artistic identity.... More...

7 Pages / 1575 Words 3 sources, 12 Citations, MLA Format $28.00 Return to List of Papers

Paper Abstract: Analysis of philosophy of author Chaim Potok depicted in 2 novels. Conflict between Lev's Jewish culture & his artistic identity. Paper Introduction: This research examines the philosophy of life held by the Chaim Potok character Asher Lev in the two novels that bear that character’s name, My Name is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev. The research will set forth the evocation of the character’s intellectual discipline, religious awareness and commitment, and the scope of his commitment to social justice, with a view toward identifying the nature of the tension between art and ethno-religious heritage that drives the action of the novels. The Asher Lev novels form a portrait of the emergence and maturing oeuvre of an artist as a young and middle-aged man. Abramson notes the critical view that My Name Is Asher Lev owes a great deal indeed to Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The fact that the young man is also an Orthodox Jew is a built Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. Jacob Kahn will make of you an artist. Now Aryeh considers itperfectly normal and natural to move the family to Vienna while he sets upHasidic communities all over Europe (MN 171ff), and Asher's pleas to hismother not to join Aryeh in Vienna fall on deaf ears, though his parents'long absence and his residence at his vulgar uncle's house enables him todevelop as an artist. But this does not prevent Aryeh, whom Asher callsaesthetically blind, from constant worry about Asher's moral blindness (MN3 4-5). New York: Alfred A. Kahn recognizes and mentors Asher's talent over the next 2 years, though because he understands the cultural and familial disapprovaland conflict that are to come, he makes a perfunctory attempt to discouragean artistic vocation: "I know your father," says Kahn. . He paints stripped to thewaist in Kahn's studio, and it is there that he first draws nudes fromlife. An artist is responsible tohis art" (MN 218). The world must return to God (GA 354).The rant, serious as it may be, is actually one of the more humorousmoments of The Gift of Asher Lev: Asher wonders in passing whether theRebbe, who usually only quotes from learned Judaism, is directing hisremarks to anyone in particular by mentioning Freud and Nietzsche. For him, uniquely in his family,identification with art overtakes identification with Judaism. Abramson notes thecritical view that My Name Is Asher Lev owes a great deal indeed to Joyce'sPortrait of the Artist as a Young Man. . Enough. I saw those demons. Forover the course of his career, Asher has absorbed the lessons of theHolocaust for Jews and the anguish of a permanent family tension with hisparents. New York: Alfred A. The readersuspects that the Rebbe's rant is directed at Asher himself. Over the course of both Asher Lev novels, the enmity between OrthodoxJewish and artistic identity plays itself out in a variety of ways. Over the course of the two novels, Aryeh never quiteunderstands his son's passion for art over his duty and heritage as aHasid. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1986.Potok, Chaim. His artistic gift, or moreexactly the way he uses that gift as a conscious artist, does. As his parents leave the country for Vienna and heprepares for a life increasingly devoted to art, the Rebbe counsels him: "Ipray to the Master of the Universe that the world will one day also hear ofyou as a Jew. Art is thus of a piecewith the Other Side, which seems to include everything from gentile cultureto non-Ladover Judaism. On a trip to the US forhis uncle's funeral, his son Avrumel becomes increasingly absorbed inLadover beliefs and is positioned to become, eventually, the main LadoverRebbe. Living in Europe, as aprominent artist, he continues to attend yeshiva services on a regular,though not excessively pious, basis. Rivkeh, who suspects(rightly) that Aryeh would not approve of Asher's engagement with secularand/or non-Jewish art, is torn between forbidding him further visits to themuseum and providing him with paints and pencils. But even as a small boy Asherhas been making imaginative drawings as well as drawings from life, and hehas gotten into trouble for drawing in a sacred book. At thispoint in the narrative, Asher is a world-famous expatriate artist who isonly visiting New York but who is undoubtedly notorious in the localsynagogue community for his lifelong embrace of the Other Side. Chaim Potok. This occasions another family split, since Asher returns to Europeto work and his son remains in America. It is within thereligious context that Ladover Judaism seems uniquely to experience thesame demons of anger that Asher experiences uniquely as an artist. But in fact, Lev's Jewish background very much shapesthe rigor and dedication with which he pursues his calling as an artist. This is partlyto avoid overt confrontation with his parents, but it is also partlybecause he perceives sociology as a nondemanding major that will notinterfere with his real passion: painting. While the novels do not say so directly, the Ladover movement, whichis to be identified with Hasidic Judaism, is exemplary of a certaininsularity, an almost tribalist clannishness that rejects out of handvirtually everything that is "other" than Ladover. Thus Asher isabsorbed by other art also on display at the Parkway, from Christianpaintings to abstract Picasso oils to various nudes. Elsewhere, Kahn challenges Asher from (soto speak) the other side: "As an artist you are responsible to Jews? "He will become myenemy" (MN 194). Twayne's United States Authors Series. Theywere the source for your art" (GA 275). No. Two hundred years of this. But I can't help it. Asher has consistently chosen biblical subjects, from OldTestament and New Testament alike. Into Brooklyn Crucifixion hecompresses all of these contradictory feelings: For dreams of horror, for nights of waiting, for memories of death, for the love I have for you, for all the things I remember, and for all the things I should remember but have forgotten, for all these I created this painting-an observant Jew working on a crucifixion because there was no aesthetic mold in his own religious tradition into which he could pour a painting of ultimate anguish and torment (MN 33 ).Over the course of My Name Is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev, Asherremains anchored in Jewish identity, marrying within the faith to Devorah,who turns out to be more piously observant than he, and, though remainingin Europe, rearing his sons as observant Jews. I . Under Kahn's tutelage-by-example, meanwhile, Asher takes on thepersona and develops the talent of an artist. As a growing boy, Asher is also troubled by his choice of artisticsubject matter, though his artistic self overtakes his uncertainty: "It isthe Other Side. Theenmity is most deeply felt in Asher's immediate family: Asher's parentsoften quarrel about Asher's drawing and painting. . . . The Asher Lev novels form a portrait of the emergence and maturingoeuvre of an artist as a young and middle-aged man. On the other hand, he majors in sociology in college. Even thoughAsher privately experiences nostalgic comfort in the familiar synagogue,the convinced Ladover community will be very public about not forgettingthe unbreachable gap between the good and the Other Side. Jews must return to Torah. Toward the end of The Gift of Asher Lev, which brings the narrative upto the present day, Asher sits in a Ladover high-holy-day service as theRebbe angrily declaims on and on about the horrors of late-198 s Americansecularism and alien ideas, some of which emanate from Jews: We should learn to live gladly as guests in a murderous but fascinating world that cares nothing about our presence? Aryeh, indeed, considers art evil, something that "comes from theOther Side" (MN 176), especially since Asher persists in drawing picturesof nudes and of Jesus. The pain of family separation forreligious reasons, a pattern begun in Asher's youth and repeated in hismiddle age, cannot stop Asher from maintaining his attachment to art. In that regard, Abramson (7) notes that Judaism isnot homogeneous and that Hasidic Jews "are the most extreme in theirbeliefs, feeling that they adhere to the only correct form of Judaism." Thenovels as a whole do not attack Jewish piety per se, but they do point outthe fact of extremism in some strands of Jewish thought and preoccupation.The reader infers that Asher's artistic career might not be so stronglycriticized by a father whose commitment to Ladover Judaism was not itselfso strong. and takes on aprofessorial career, while Aryeh continually travels, sometimes for longperiods, as a leading advocate of the Ladover movement, a strict strand ofOrthodox Jewish thought and evangelicalism. In the earliest stage of his deliberatestudy of art, Asher more or less teaches himself rudiments of technique,learning the forms of art by copying paintings at the museum. Stoic acceptance and gay defiance in the face of--nothing; in the face of indifference, boiling violence, inexorable chaos; in the face of--the Other Side. . My Name Is Asher Lev. Freud and Nietzsche, he went on. . But [Asher] was alsoborn with a gift" (MN 5). Rivkeh andAsher's trip to the Parkway Museum during one of Aryeh's many absences, isintended as a visit to some rare Jewish manuscripts and, presumably, partof normal and natural aesthetic education. The fact that the young man is alsoan Orthodox Jew is a built-in conflict for the artist, for the culturalcustom of learned Orthodox Judaism is to focus on intellectual andreligious pursuits. . Overthe course of My Name Is Asher Lev, Rivkeh obtains a Ph.D. . This research examines the philosophy of life held by the Chaim Potokcharacter Asher Lev in the two novels that bear that character's name, MyName is Asher Lev and The Gift of Asher Lev. . Knopf, 1972. But Asher's art has an extremism about it; the novel as a wholeis structured as a memoir occasioned by the notoriety of subject matter ofone of his works, Brooklyn Crucifixion. .As an artist you are responsible to no one and to nothing, except toyourself and to the truth as you see it. Eventually, in The Gift of Asher Lev, Kahn tells Asherthat what he saw in the boy was not mere talent but "the capacity for rage.Even the Rebbe could not see the anger in you. Knopf, 199 .---. There is a seriousness of purpose in the entireLev family that has its source in the scholarly lineage and pursuits ofAsher's mother Rivkeh and the political activism of his father Aryeh. Attempts by the family and the Rebbe to maneuver Asher's aestheticeither in more pious directions or away altogether from representationalart explain why the Rebbe calls on Jacob Kahn, a Russian émigré, andestablished New York sculptor, and nonobservant Jew, to look at Asher'sdrawings. It also turns out that this workwas born of an artistic anguish that has a serious purpose all its own. The research will set forththe evocation of the character's intellectual discipline, religiousawareness and commitment, and the scope of his commitment to socialjustice, with a view toward identifying the nature of the tension betweenart and ethno-religious heritage that drives the action of the novels. While Asher Lev's very name positions him as a Jew, it is notas a Jew that he finds sustenance. Arthas become Asher's real religion, his form of extreme passion andexpression. . The two extremes of secular life. The seriousness of Asher's parents' pursuits seems partly responsiblefor the seriousness of purpose he forms as an artist; however, theirpursuits do not conflict with Jewish piety. Works CitedAbramson, Edward A. . The tension between highly traditional Jewish piety and art that Ashercomes to embody is articulated by Asher's mentors, who are symbols of theopposite worlds. Asher pursues a career as an artist, and My Name Is Asher Lev makesclear that the worlds of Ladover Judaism and private aesthetics cannot bereconciled. The Gift of Asher Lev. 5 3. There is also the fact that he has neverbeen able to relinquish his religious training. listened to the strange newpounding of my heart" (MN 179). The Gift of Asher Lev insome ways completes the cycle of family tension. . MyName Is Asher Lev refers to the family "triangle seminal with Jewishpotentiality and freighted with Jewish responsibility. Bu only you willmake of yourself a Jew" (MN 243). If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.