My Name Is Asher Lev (Cyclopedia of Literary Characters)
At a glance:
- Author: Chaim Potok
- First Published: 1972
- Type of Work: Novel
- Type of Plot: Domestic realism
- Time of Work: The 1950’s and 1960’s
- Setting: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York
- Genres: Long fiction, Bildungsroman, Domestic realism
- Subjects: 1950’s, New York, North America or North Americans, Northeast, U.S., United States or Americans, Tradition, Jews or Jewish life, Painting or painters, Drawing
- Locales: Manhattan, NY, Europe, Brooklyn, NY, Crown Heights, NY, Provincetown, MA
Characters Discussed
Asher Lev, a young Hasidic Jew who becomes a famous artist. Asher Lev’s name is not unusual, but everything else about the protagonist of this book is. Asher begins his story as a defense of himself and his art, especially of his most notorious painting, Brooklyn Crucifixion. He wants to make it clear that he is not the traitor to his culture and religious beliefs that many, including his parents, have accused him of being. Asher explains the long and painful process that has led him from being a good boy in the ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jewish...
[The entire page is 947 words long]
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