Comparing My Name is Asher Lev, Naked Lunch and Animal Farm

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Comparative Analysis of My Name is Asher Lev, Naked Lunch and Animal Farm

What do a junkie, Communists pigs, and a little Jewish boy have in common? No, this isnÕt an Anti-Semitic crack. In fact, the answer is really nothing. Then how would Naked Lunch, Animal Farm, and My Name is Asher Lev make a good comparative research paper? ThereÕs no magic involved really. To solve this perplexity one must think like Chaim Potok who said that "no feeling, no thought, and no sensibility cannot be tapped or explored and revealed" (Abramson 59). By looking deeper into the fibers of history, satire, criticism, and philosophy that are woven into each of these stories, the connection becomes less ambiguous.

As with many great novels, there is usually more to the story than what is written on paper. Each author, in his novels, incorporated his critical view of the world into the story by using the theme of individual vs. society. These views portray their cultures in the negative light in which they saw them. Therefore, the criticisms were the authorsÕ way of exhibiting and lashing out against what, in their minds, were the evils within the society they lived in. These problems range from politics, to religion, to the human condition.

My Name is Asher Lev, Naked Lunch, and Animal Farm were all written with a specific, social criticism in mind. Chaim Potok, author of My Name is Asher Lev, though an ordained rabbi of the Jewish faith, (Abramson 2) sought to justify the "conviction that no idea should be foreign in our world (Potok)" by challenging the JewÕs belief that "art holds no place in the Jewish faith. (Kremer)" Though raised in a strict, Orthodox household Potok grew interested in art from an early age and,...

... middle of paper ...

...l. 2. Feb, 1976. 321-322.

Potok, Chaim. Interview with Jennifer Gilmett. Seattle Pacific University. 29 Oct. 1997.http://www.lasierra.edu/~ballen/potok/Potok.interviews. SPU.html

Potok, Chaim. Lecture. Southern College of Seventh-Day Adventists. Collegedale, Tenn. Ed. Dr. Jerry Gladson. http://www.lasierra.edu/ ~ballen/potok/Potok.unique.html#Asher

Seltzer, Alvin J. Contemporary Literary Criticism. Vol. 42. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1985. 80-85.

Skerl, Jenny. "William S. Burroughs". http://www.bigtable.com/0009e.html

Smyer, Richard I. Animal Farm: Pastoralism and Politics. Boston: TwayneÕs Masterwork Studies, 1988. 11-30.

Smyer, Richard I. "Primal Dream and Primal Crime: OrwellÕs Development As a Physchological Novelist". DIScovering Authors Modules Online. University of Missouri Press, 1979. http://www.galenet.com

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