Asher Lev's Crucifixion Paintings as an Act of Disrespect Towards His Parents
Asher Lev paints against the values of his family and community. He disregards Jewish traditions and observance by pursuing his passion for art. His individuality has him disobeying the Rebbe, the mashphia, his mythic ancestor as well as his parents. Asher does not intend for his artwork to be harmful, but that they convey truths and feelings. Yet, the Brooklyn Crucifixions cause shame for his observant Jewish parents. In that way, he disrespects their teachings and wishes. He challenges the Jewish belief on modesty in creating nude works and disturbs the Hasidic community in his Christian imagery. Worst of all is the reflection of the life-like representation of his family in the paintings. This causes a shocked and angry reaction from the public. The climax evolves towards the last chapter of My Name is Asher Lev, when Asher's parents react hurtingly after the paintings are exposed to them in the New York Museum. Chaim Potok writes their reaction as happening slowly in a step-by-step movement; in silences; building up readers' expectations of a negative outcome.
Guilt and fear of disobedience induces a silence from Asher. "They're not the truth, Papa; but they're not lies either". Asher appears to be speaking in his mind while thinking of the memories that the pictures portray. He disregards his father's lesson on how 'one Jew can cause the rest of the Jews to suffer'. Asher feels his disrespect as a son and justifies himself in his mind, but does not speak to his parents about the Cruxifixion paintings at all. Disrespect for his parents makes Asher scared. He anticipates their disappointment and hurt. Readers sympathize in acknowledging his inner suffering as he struggles to communicate freely with them.
Asher fears his father's reaction more than his mother's reaction for it is his father that disapproves of Asher drawing in the first place. The father appears to be the one who should be feared the most. Other characters suggest this, for example, Asher's teacher who says,"What will your father say if he saw this?" in regards to the picture of the Rebbe Asher drew in his Chumash. His mother is more supportive of Asher and just wants him and his father to get along. After finishing their journey for the Rebbe, she says " I want you and your father to be friends", The te...
... middle of paper ...
...an ugly sickening picture of the boy at school.
Asher and his art is an ultimate form of disrespect towards his parents and perhaps the Jewish community. They warn him of the day of hurt and resent like the opening day of Asher's paintings in the New York Museum. Asher's father returns from Russia, and says "Do not forget your people Asher" It is the same as if one Jew aches, the whole community hurts, Asher's mythic ancestor haunts him in his dream, and indicates that his art is a waste of time at the end of Chapter 4.
It is Asher's 'gift' that separates him from the Jewish community. He causes so much pain for his parents and the community that the only resolution is too send Asher away, which the Rebbe does at the end. Like the father and the mother, Asher is journeying for him to prevent Jews from suffering. The conclusion ends with Asher's parents watching in silence as Asher's cab pulls away. Similarly, at the museum, he had watched his parents, who did not utter a voice or a glance at him, pull away in a cab. In his parents' eyes, Asher has crossed the boundary of obedience and disrespect, with such immense rage and hurt that it causes a deadly silence between them.
This shows how he never leaves the false impression he leads people to believe, the art or artifice he expresses to people. __________________________________________________________________________ In her graphic novel, she explores the art and artifice in her life. Alison decides that art is the truth and must be mastered, something beautiful. On the other hand, she comes to the fact the artifice is the falsehood she has encountered in life.
Mother with the knife on her hand forcing him to eat, represents the difficulty to raise her children and teaching them social norm. The Jewish people make louder voice represent the minority to get their social position in the society. Those stereotypes are the Jewish joke for Roth. His complaint, his identity consists with the Jewish joke. As Alex complains to his Doctor, “I’m living it in middle of a Jewish Joke! I am the son in the Jewish joke- only it ain’t no joke!” (36, 37). He mentioned in the middle, that’s mean he is conflicting between two cultural forces. Portney’s views, as all of his teachers are simile to his mother. The social standard he learned from his teacher and parents and his self-critical conscience established a super-ego in his mind. Now his egos are gloomy to find his identity and worry about the Jewish minority about their thousand year history and their represent in the contemporary
Amir’s development from being “a boy who won’t stand up for himself,” to a man that stands up for the morally responsible thing to do (22, Hosseini). When Amir was a child, he tried to escape from his sins in the past by hiding them with lies. However, this only made it worse for Amir, causing him to be an insomniac for much of his life and putting himself through constant torment. Only when Amir became a man, like Baba wanted him to be, was Amir able to face the truth of what he done and put himself on the path of redemption. Even when Amir was suffering a violent beating from Assef, Amir was able to laugh because he knew he was doing what he should have for Hassan years ago. Amir’s development from a child, who lies in order to cower from their own mistakes, into a man, someone who is not only able to admit his sins, but atone for them, is essential to communicating the theme of redemption being the only way to settle with your
Amir’s core conflict in the novel is an internal conflict between himself and guilt. From the day he is born Amir is tainted with guilt, he admits to this guilt when he says “I always felt like Baba hated me a little. And why not? After all, I had killed his beloved wife, his beautiful princess, hadn’t I?” However his greater guilt comes from his two betrayals of Hassan: watching him get raped and framing him for stealing his birthday money to get him fired. For the next 25 years Amir carries with him the shame and guilt from the winter of
The idea of whether abortion should be illegal or allowed is a controversial one since everyone seems to have different ideologies. Judith Thomson, who is in support of pro-choice argues in her article “A Defense of Abortion” main idea towards abortion is stating women should have the right to choose because they have the moral right to decide whether they have to hold life in their body. This idea is presented from her first analogy using the violinist who has a failing kidney and will perish if he does not have someone give him blood immediately. They take you without your permission and plug you into him. She connects this to the idea of the fetus by saying everyone has the right to life and if the fetus is considered a person then it would be wrong to kill an innocent human being, but then says that if the child is harming you then you should not wait until you are dead, he body is the home of the women so she should be allowed to defend herself against
Because of this, Hassan is almost constantly bullied when he steps outside. Amir usually refuses to help Hassan, fearing he will get bullied for helping a minority. This type of thing built guilt up inside of him because he was then viewed as weak by his father’s friend. He overheard them talking and he was called weak because he would not even stand up for his best friend that he essentially lives with. He continues not to back Hassan up and starts being mean to Hassan, just like the other boys because he does not want to be viewed as weak.. During the kite runner festival, Hassan went to get the winning kite that Amir had knocked out of the sky. When he does, he is cornered by one of his bullies, Assef, and some of his friends. They take the kite and then rape Hassan. Amir stands nearby, watching the event take place and does nothing about it. Eventually he runs away trying to get the thought out of his head. Gradually over time, guilt builds up inside of Amir and it starts to become hard to even be around Hassan. This then leads him to frame Hassan for stealing his watch. After Amir does that, Amir finds out he forced his father to kick his brother out of the only housing he had. His father starts crying a lot and Amir feels that it is all his fault. Guilt impacts him very much even when he moves to America, he still
The first point of view utilized in the book allows Amir to accurately relay his emotions and thoughts, including his reasons for trying to forget and run away from the past, and finally his reconciliation with himself. From the very beginning, Amir personally describes a past that he wishes to remove from his life: the death of his mother. He believes that his father “hated [him] a little” (p. 17) for “killing” (p. 17) his mom at childbirth. Amir reasons that his distant relationship between himself and Baba is due to the mother’s death and thus, wishes to cover his “sin” (p. 16) by trying to make his father “forget” (p. 93). Amir’s assumption of his father’s distance shows the high subjectivity of the narrative’s perspective. Amir’s inner conflict with his past is further revealed by his own words as the story progresses. During a kite competition, Amir and his very close “friend” (p. 98) and “servant” (p. 98), Hassan, manage to defeat dozens of other kite flyers and win the compe...
Amir starts by shedding a dark light on his past religion but very soon begins to praise the religion. He plays this sudden pride on the way in which he was raised. This piece of evidence directly states that Amir feels conflicted feelings towards his religion because of how he was raised and that it is embedded in
Abortion is a complex social and moral issue that remains unresolved in today’s society. It is continuously changing and renewing under new influences presented by different individuals as well as the global civilization as a whole. Arguments from both sides are often extremely dogmatic and defensive, presenting merely from one perspective. However, the common argument revolves closely on what the true definition of a person or a human being is and its relations to whether a fetus is a human being or not from the moment of conception. This is examined from a liberal point of view by Thomson (Thomson, 1971, p. 47-66), who explains that abortion can be justified in a wide range of cases and challenges the notion that it is morally impermissible. Anti-abortionists have taken an opposite stance and claimed that Thomson’s argument is exaggerated and patently false. In this paper, I will briefly examine Thomson’s perception of abortion and explain how the analogies demonstrated in her paper assist in supporting her view on legal abortion as well as why I agree with Thomson on some parts of her argumentation.
Amir in this quotation shows his want to meet his mother. He signifies a piece of him is missing showing his sensitive
Amir is, to be put bluntly, a coward. He is led by his unstable emotions towards what he thinks will plug his emotional holes and steps over his friends and family in the process. When he sought after Baba’s invisible love, Amir allowed Hassan to be raped in an alleyway just so that the blue kite, his trophy that would win his father’s heart, could be left untouched. In the end, he felt empty and unfulfilled with the weight of his conscience on his shoulders comparable to Atlas’ burden. Unable to get over his fruitless betrayal, he lashes out and throws pomegranates at Hassan before stuffing money and a watch under his loyal friend’s pathetic excuse for a bed, framing Hassan for theft and directly causing the departure of both servants from his household. Even after moving to America, finding a loving wife, and creating a career for himself in writing, he still feels hollow when thinking of his childhood in Afghanistan. Many years later, he is alerted of Hassan’s death and sets out on a frenzied chase to find his friend’s orphaned son. He feels that he can somehow ease his regrets from all of those years ago if he takes in Hassan’s son, Sohrab. He finds Sohrab as a child sex slave for Assef, who coincidentally was the one to rape Hassan all of those years ago. After nearly dying in his attempt to take back Sohrab, he learns that he can take the damaged child back to the states with him. Sadly, Hassan’s son is so
A large part of the novel deals with Amir trying to redeem himself. First with his Baba by trying to win the kite fighting tournament because Amir feels as though his father blames him for his mothers death. The the larger act of redemption occurs when trying to rid himself of the guilt of letting Hassan be rape...
It is Amir's journey to redemption that is the premise of this tale. We see that he is essentially a good boy and man, but that he made serious mistakes in his quest for his father's love and attention. As a man, then, he is called to compensate the sins of his past and "do good again." His small successes provide the reader with a sense of familiarity as one faces the daily battle of what is right and what is easy.
Because of this, canned food is an obvious solution to free-choice feeding, but it is not convenient for many cat owners. A big reason why many owners allow free-choice feeding is because they have multiple cats and leaving the food out is the more convenient than trying to feed all of their cats at specific mealtimes. However, this is especially problematic, because in addition to being unable to regulate caloric intake, there is no way to tell if one or more of the cats are not eating (Lauten). The importance of regulating how much the cats eat is increased by the high amount of carbohydrates that are in most dry foods. Dry food has more calories than canned food because dry food has less water and very little actual meat. It is possible that cats eat more when they are fed dry food because they have to struggle to get enough nutrition out of it (Lauten). In addition, cats are meant to get their energy from protein and fat, not carbohydrates. This means that they end up converting the carbohydrates in the dry food to fat instead of energy because they are not used to using such carbohydrates for energy (Hofve). When the food is being converted to only fat, the cat will gain weight.
They are also high in preservatives and additives, which most owners would prefer to avoid. Semi moist food is usually the most expensive food to purchase. As with the dry food, it all varies with each manufacturer; ingredients, nutrition, quality, taste, are all different from brand to brand.