Three Novels Essay Example for Free

Three Novels Essay Central to the rising action, falling action, and climax of any short story is linked directly to the protagonist. Therefore, the protagonists key features and experiences push the plot and action of the novel forward. It is this literary elements which lead to the eventual emotional growth of the character, his circumstances, and the denouement of the novel. Theme, structure and social characteristics are the literary elements, which highlight the spiritual growth of the main characters in â€Å"My Name is Asher Lev†, â€Å"Emma† and â€Å"Huckleberry Finn†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Each of these three novels about moral maturation and the growth of self-awareness, â€Å"Huckleberry Finn† by Mark Twain, whose protagonist is Huckleberry Finn, Jane Austen’s â€Å"Emma†, named after the protagonist and â€Å"My Name is Asher Lev† by Chaim Potok, whose main character is Asher Lev. Notably, the authors necessarily indicate the protagonists’ names in the titles, underlining their moral and psychological development as a central plotline. The literary elements of theme, structure and protagonist’s social characteristics actually strengthen the reader’s understanding of the character’s spiritual growth: Lev’s novel demonstrates’ the protagonist’s liberation from the community bonds through the lens of the theme of social pressure, Twain’s writing – the progress of Huck’s humanistic views underlining the theme of slavery, Austen’s work – Emma’s psychological maturation, through prioritizing the theme of marriage, moreover, all works by their structure provide the mistakes made by the protagonists on their path and thus make clear to the reader that development is not a smooth and gradual process, whereas the change or stability of sociological characteristics pay reader’s attention either to the connection between self-awareness and social position or to the purely inner revolution. The characters actually perfect very distinct aspects of self awareness: Emma, for instance, overgrows the selfish and infantile girl, whose main interest is manipulating the others’ fates (as she appears at the beginning), Asher Lev realizes that he is actually an independent personality rather than the subject of the Hassidic community after being judged for depicting the his mother’s anguish, whereas Huckleberry Finn, who has never considered carefully the issue of racial equality, begins to realize his humanistic views and oppose the oppression of slaves and the split of their families. Due to the fact that the major theme in â€Å"My Name is Asher Lev† is community bonds and the conflict itself develops in terms of the weakening of the commitment to the groups of Hassids the protagonist, who is a bright and unique individuality, should ascend over the blind observance of community tradition and learn to distinguish himself from the group. Therefore, his development is associated with individuation and learning of his ego and the religious conflict results in the development of Asher’s ability to assert his self: â€Å"So it is time for the defense, for a long session in demythology. But I will not apologize. It is absurd to apologize for a mystery†(Potok, 1960). Asher displays his maturity and understands the difference between what he can explain and what he can not. The conflict in Asher is that there is disconnected between his art and the god he worships.   The internal conflict is resolved at the end of the novel through Ashers emotional development.   Asher grows and matures which enables Asher to make the appropriate choice between the two.   Asher is able to release his emotions by creating art.   He learns to understand how this art reflects him and what it truly means. This insight he lacked at the begining of the novel, however in the final chapters he displays his newly found maturity. A pivotal moment is when Asher moves into his aparment.   He states 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. Now I would have to paint the street that could not be seen. He is able to confront his past and make sense of it. He begins to see himself as situated within that community in a unique way, but still as a part of it. The theme of marriage as the leading one in â€Å"Emma† is also related to the main character’s development: whereas at first, Emma views marriage as a game, popular in her environment, she is still not infantile to understand that this specific type of partnership is based necessarily on strong affection after developing the feelings for her brother-in-law; whereas at the beginning she has fear for the responsibility associated with marriage. Emma is always stating she does not want to get married.   However, when her close friend becomes interested in a man, Emma feels her feelings begin to stir.   Emma realizes Mr. Knightley is the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with. She is only happy around him.   This is a pivotal moment because previously she hated the idea of marriage.   Love, while central to conflict in the strong, is what reveals Emmas true desires from life.   Emma reflect Emma realizes that she had indeed not been a friend to Harriet, as Mr. Knightley had said.   She realizes how foolish it was of her to try to meddle in other peoples romantic affairs when she did not even realize her own feelings for Mr. Knightley.   She now knows that she should not interfer in other peoples affairs and that she has the capacity to love. The theme of slavery also supports the reader’s understanding of the young protagonist’s moral growth in â€Å"Huckleberry Finn†: â€Å"I’m low down; and I’m a-going to steal him† (Twain, 1999, Ch. 33); as one can understand, Huck no longer views Jim as property, but in order to persuade Tom, he recognizes his own inclination to wrongdoing and takes entire responsibility for the stealing the slave. Finn, at the begining of the story, is a young boy.   He is the productive of his environment and the time he lives in.    He holds the same prejudices that the adult around him hold.   However, his experiences with Jim, on the river, forever change him.   These experiences change the way that Finn sees the world, and slavery.   Finn reflects on slavery in the following way Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldnt ever feel any hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to see. Human beings can be awful cruel to one another.   Finn realizes that just because people around him are cruel does not make it right.   He makes the choice that slavery is wrong and he will not treat Jim the way society tells him he should be treated. The structure of the stories is generally similar: the greatest part of the plot is dedicated to depicting the behavioral imperfections of the protagonist, so that the reader can feel the protagonist is an ordinary person, whose growth is based upon his/her own mistakes. For instance, â€Å"Emma† at first depicts an arrogant and class-conscious girl saying â€Å"The yeomanry are precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do† (Austen, 2001, Vol.1 Ch.4) and throughout the first two parts she acts as a quarrelsome person, whereas her later reasoning can be characterized as wiser: â€Å"I think Harriet is doing extremely well â€Å"(Austen, 2001, Vol. 3, Ch. 28), i.e. she approves of her best friend’ marriage to the farmer, having got the idea of love and letting it in. Beyond mistakes, Potok’s and Twain’s protagonists also encounter difficulties and adversities, which shape their outlooks; for instance, Lev’s story can be divided into three parts (Walden, 1985): period of the teenage conflict with the environment, movement toward the goal in Kahn’s studio and the resolution of the conflict and individuation (Potok, 1972). Huck’s moral development is less gradual and actually consists of several insights: 1) first encounter with Jim as a fugitive slave and the initial desire to help him; 2) The loss of the companion after meeting the â€Å"aristocrats† and Jim’s imprisonment in Phelpses’ house. Finally, social characteristics of the protagonists are quite expressive themselves and point actually to the qualities to be changed. For instance, Emma is introduced as a girl with a degree of self-importance and class-based prejudice because of her upper class identity, but later she begins to understand her friend Harriet in her love for Martin and thus grows more open-minded; furthermore, her maturation is accompanied by the change of social characteristics, as Emma accepts Knightley’s proposition Huck Finn’s social characteristics remain practically the same, as the author seeks to maintain the reader’s focus on the advancement of his moral qualities, so that the adolescent still remains to some extent uncommitted to social norms â€Å"Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it† (Twain 1999, Ch. 43), in spite of having developed his distinct attitude towards slavery. Asher Lev, in turn, drastically changes his social identity: the growth of his self-awareness and self-identity result in his alienation and separation from the community. The reader’s understanding of the protagonist’s path toward self-awareness is to great extent manipulated by the authors: Jane Austen, Chaim Potok and Mark Twain design the plot structure, which underlines the failures and subsequent insights of the protagonist, embed the central theme into the main character’s spiritual growth and substantially change the protagonist’s social features, except Huck’s case, in which the focus on morality shift is broadened through remaining social characteristics stable. References Austen, Jane.   Emma.  Ed. James Kinsley.  New York: Oxford UP, 1998. Twain, Mark.   Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.   Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 2004. Potok, Chaim. The Chosen. New York: Fawcett Crest, 1967. My Name Is Asher Lev.  Ã‚   New York: Ballentine Books, 1990.