Characters and the Way They

¶ … characters and the way they evolve throughout the novels it's imperative, first of all, to establish their roles in the course of action.

Mark Twain's main character, Huckleberry Finn is a teen-ager who undergoes a total moral transformation throughout his journey for a new life, having to use his own judgment to make fundamental decisions that will seriously affect his entire existence.

The second protagonist, Emma is a young, beautiful, clever, and confident character who exercises her influence in a constricted and complex environment, with a power of manipulating everyone around her and a disposition to think a little to well of herself, but who will eventually perceive the dangers that her own self-satisfaction presents.

The third protagonist Asher Lev is a very gifted young boy born into a Hasidic Jewish family which from the very beginning doesn't agree with Lev's talent and which in the end, due to its religious almost fanatic beliefs will send their son into exile in Paris.

In all three novels, "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain, "Emma" by Jane Austen and "My name is Asher Lev" by Chaim Potok we are dealing with characters who are not flat, who find themselves in the ongoing process of transformation until they finally discover the way to self-awareness. Huck has to undergo some important moral changes, to make life defining decisions in order to discover himself and to establish his own ethic set of beliefs; Emma is a character with a well defined financial status, a position that allows her to play the matchmaker, to control other peoples' lives, and although she finds herself entitled to do so she will eventually learn from her mistakes and change her attitude when she realizes that her arrogance and vanity are not doing any good; Lev Asher is a character who, having as a background the conflict between his community's religious beliefs and his art, succeeds in developing himself as an appreciated artist capable of expressing his most inner feelings through art, reaching his self-awareness.

All in all, in each novel we are dealing with a protagonist's growth, and this process of growing is supported by some literary elements such as conflict, theme, and characterization which enhance the evolution of the characters. The conflict helps the reader perceive the struggle that each character must overcome either with himself or with something or someone around him. In terms of theme as a literary device we can say that people naturally express ideas and feelings throughout their behaviors so, the characters' actions or events in the story are used to suggest themes.

Characterization is a major literary device which helps the reader perceive the characters' goals, ambitions and values and the way these elements change along with the protagonists' evolutions.

Mark Twain's classic novel "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" tells the story of a teenaged misfit who finds himself floating on a raft down the Mississippi river with an escaped black called Jim. In the course of their journey Huck and Jim experience many adventures, dangerous situations, all sorts of characters who are sometimes menacing and often hilarious. Although some of the incidents in the novel are funny in themselves, most of the humor is found in Huck's way of expressing himself and in his entire worldview. In the end of the novel both Huck and Jim find their long-desired freedom, Jim deciding to try and buy his wife and child out of slavery, while Huck is determined to head west for another adventure.

Emma" by Jane Austen presents us the protagonist Emma Woodhouse as a wealthy, pretty, self-satisfied young woman who is left alone with a hypochondriac father after her mother's death. Her governess Miss Taylor marries a neighbor, Mr. Weston and, blind to her own feelings Emma decides to play the matchmaker with her friends and neighbors. She turns Harriet Smith into her protege, an illegitimate girl of no social status and tries to manipulate a marriage between Harriet and Mr. Elton, a young clergyman who has in fact set his eyes on Emma. She meets Frank Churchill, Mr. Weston's son for whom she believes to have some feelings. When Harriet shows her interest in Mr. Knightley, a neighbor who had been her mentor and friend Emma reconsiders her own attitude. She has always regarded Mr. Knightley as belonging to her and she eventually finds her destiny in marriage with him. Harriet who is left alone to decide for herself marries Robert Martin, a young farmer.

Chaim Potok's novel "My Name is Asher Lev" presents us Asher Lev as a Hasidic Jew who has an extraordinary talent for art. As he recollects his childhood and teenage years, where most of the plot is spent, readers can perceive how the differences between the creative young Asher and his traditional father Aryeh are built. Asher's father does not approve of his son's hobby or talent and neither does the entire Jewish community, but with the help of mentor Jacob Kahn, Asher tries to enhance his artistic talents. In a world which is torn between his father conservative approach and Asher's genius, Asher must go away in order to fulfill himself as a true artist.

A first comparative point regarding these three novels is the conflict that each protagonist must overcome. In Twain's novel we are dealing with a conflict of person against society which happens because the protagonist is in conflict with the values of his society. At the beginning of the novel Huck struggles against his own society and its attempts to civilize him, represented by the Widow Douglas, Miss Watson and others.

Describing his brief sojourn with the Widow Douglass after she adopts him, Huck expresses his lack of interest in her stories that intended to educate him: "After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people "(Chapter 1, Electronic text center, University of Virginia Library).

Later this conflict between him and the society gains greater focus in Huck's dealing with Jim as Huck must decide whether to turn Jim in as the society demanded or instead to protect and help his friend. He decides that going to "hell" if this means following his instincts and not the society's hypocritical ones is a better option that going heaven:

It was a close place. I took... up [the letter I'd written to Miss Watson], and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself: All right then, I'll go to hell -- and tore it up" (Chapter 31, Electronic text center, University of Virginia Library).

Another type of conflict meaning an internal one or person against self is experienced by Emma. She struggles to shed her vanity and ignorance and her fear of confronting her own feelings, both of them determining her to misunderstand those around her and to meddle harmfully in their lives. Though Emma is never totally cured of her impulse to make matches for others, at some point in the novel she rightly diagnosis what is wrong with her matchmaking:" the first error, and the worst, lay at her door. It was foolish, it was wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together....She was quite concerned and ashamed and resolved to do such things no more"(chapter 16, Pemberley e-text of Emma).

The same type of internal conflict is undergone by Asher Lev. He struggles with his Hasidic Jewish community to use and keep his great gift of drawing as many see his artistic skills as a waste of time and even worse as sitra achra, a gift from he other side. Moved in his own apartment in Paris he reflects on his past, his parents and in the same time he feels rejected by the community but still a part of it:" Away from my world, alone in an apartment that offered me neither memories nor roots, I began to find old and distant memories of my own, long buried by pain and time and slowly brought to the surface now" (Spark Notes, My name is Asher Lev).

One of the most important devices of any novel is the theme and we shall use it as our second comparative point for a better understanding of the novels.

The main theme of Twain's novel is the moral progression of Huck who, although emerges into the novel with an inferiority complex caused by living with a drunkard and abusive father in the end of his journey he takes fundamental decisions that will change his life forever, gaining his own sense of morality. Society can greatly influence the individual and sometimes the individual must break off from the accepted values of society to determine the ultimate truth to himself. By the final chapter, although Huck has come to like Silas and Sally, he knows that they are still a part of the society he has come to distrust and fear so, before the dust from his adventures is fully settled he is already planning to detach himself again:" but I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before" (chapter 43, Electronic text center, University of Virginia Library).

In Austen's novel the theme is to show the violation of the moral and social codes and its disastrous results in a humored way. While human follies and stupidities lead to the violation of the code and only the self-knowledge can prevent the human error, Jane Austen's main theme becomes to know yourself. Through self-analysis Emma changes from an arrogant girl to a caring and considerate human being, learning that social code must be based on human moral qualities, a change that wouldn't have been possible if it hadn't been for Mr. Knightley who has always made her aware of her mistakes:" She was vexed beyond what could have been expressed...How could she have exposed herself to such ill opinion in any one she valued" (chapter 43, Pemberley e-text of Emma).

The theme of Potok's novel is the process of finding one's identity and fulfilling one's potential having as background a powerful culture confrontation. Asher is a fascinating creature with two conflicting forces pulling him in opposite directions, on the one hand is the Hasidic indoctrinated community in which he was brought up and, on the other hand there is his prodigy. From this very confrontation Asher's identity is built and enforced. It is Potok himself who acknowledges the use if this particular theme in his novel:" What I'm trying to explore in my books is one kind of such confrontation of ideas. Of cultures in tension with one another. A kind of tension that I experienced as I grew up and made my way into this world. All of us have one kind or another of ongoing culture confrontation almost every day of our lives" (Chaim Potok lecture, "On Being Proud of Uniqueness").

Characterization is one of the most important literary elements in trying to learn more about the protagonist's actions and feelings.