The Roles of the lead Protagonists and Conflicts in the Novels - Essay Example

The roles of the lead protagonists in Jane Austen’s Emma, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Chaim Potok’s My is Asher Lev are similar in that each face conflicts between self identity and social norms. The author’s use these conflicts to bring the protagonist to maturity and self-awareness. Jane Austen’s protagonist Emma Woodhouse is a wealthy young woman lacking in nothing, perhaps only modesty. Her growth and maturity revolves around her attempts at romantic matchmaking and especially her attempts to groom Harriet, an illegitimate teen for marriage. Emma who sees herself as flawless slowly learns the error of her ways through heart ache and disappointments and slowly comes to terms with her own shortcomings. Twain, Austen and Potok use literary elements such as characterization, conflict and point of view to illustrate the difficulty with which these three protagonists evolve. Potok’s Asher Lev is a gifted artist born into a Hassidic Jewish family and community. As a child Asher’s artistic talent creates a lot of conflict for him and his family and members of the Jewish community where art is considered a waste of time and one’s religious faith must always come first. Asher, like Austen’s Emma is self-absorbed and puts his art first. This is particularly irksome to Asher’s father who is an upstanding member of the Jewish community. The tension between Asher and his father creates difficulties within the family structure as Asher’s mother is torn between father and son. The Rebbe finally takes matters into his hands and permits Asher to become an apprentice to a non-active Jewish artist under whom Asher’s talents flourish. Eventually, Asher resolves his conflicts with his family and community by leaving both to pursue his art. Twain’s Huck Finn, like Asher Lev is a loner but in a different way. Huck’s only surviving parent is his father who is in and out of Huck’s life and is prone to alcoholism and violence. He returns to town just as Huck is learning to live a normal life under the supervision of Ms. Douglas with whom he lives. He kidnaps Huck and takes to a cabin where he physically abuses him. Huck escapes by faking his own death and more or less goes on the run. He unwittingly meets up with Jim, Ms. Douglas’s slave who is trying to escape to the free states. Along the way Huck is conflicted about social and personal issues and develops a profound sense of self-growth and appreciation in much the same manner as Emma and Asher. Characterization The three protagonists are similarly independent and free-spirited but in very different ways. What binds the three protagonists is their non-conformist attitudes toward society. Emma does not want to get married although marriage is pre-ordained. Asher does not want to abandon his art and prioritize his religion. Huck is resistant to the idea of conforming to society’s idea of respectability. Huck at age 13 recognizes the hypocrisy in society’s norms when he makes the following observation: “Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she wouldn’t. She said it was a mean practice...That is just the way with some people they get down on a thing when they don’t know nothing about it. Here she was a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, being gone you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff too; of course that was alright…” (Twain, 2003 p.2). Asher Lev, even as a child was independent of mind and thought. When his mother told him: “You should make the world pretty, Asher"(Potok, p.32) Asher had no desire to comply with such a command. Instead he drew the world the way it was, or at least the way that he saw it. Emma’s independence unlike Huck and Asher’s is attributable more to her overtly high opinion of herself and the fact that she having been raised without a mother and with an affectionate father was self-empowered. The following passage basically unveils a candid characterization of Austen’s Emma: “The real evils indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power rather of having too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too well of herself…”(Austen,1999, p. 6). Huck and Asher’s independence is characterized more by their lack of empathy for society’s norms and rigid strictures. Emma, as demonstrated by the passage quoted thought very highly of herself and her abilities and these attributes were the driving force behind her independence. As the novels’ plots unfold the reader becomes more and more aware of how the independent nature of the three protagonists creates difficulties for them. Huck’s difficulties arise out his desire to escape the confines of a rigid life. Ironically, Huck himself is aware of this and comes to the conclusion that he has come full circle. He notes: "But I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally shes going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I cant stand it. I been there before"(Twain, 2003, p. 293). In other words, Huck will go along with those he loves, but he will not necessarily respect their rigid strictures. Emma similarly comes to the realization that she is not flawless when at last she finds romance herself with Mr. Knightley. She reflects on her matchmaking games and the unhappy consequences accepting that: “What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to be more worthy of him (Knightley), whose intentions and judgments had been ever so superior to her own. Nothing but that the lessons of her last folly might teach her humility and circumspection in the future”(Austen,1999 p.300). Here we see that Emma has been subdued and humbled by that which she thought she would never subscribe to; romance and marriage. In accepting love and commitment, Emma has grown to a less selfish young woman to an unselfish adult accepting her own shortcomings. Asher, like Huck and Emma comes full circle when he comes to the realization that his choice of art above all others was the cause of much pain to his family he makes a firm commitment. He wants to pursue art, but to do so at less expense to his family it would be better for him to give up either his art or his religion. In reconciling the source of his angst Asher matures. He realizes that he could never be complete if he tried to satisfy both his desire for art and the strictness of his religion. He decided to give up the latter noting that: “I had brought something incomplete into the world. Now I felt its incompleteness. ‘Can you understand what it means for something to be incomplete?’ my mother had once asked me. I understood. I understood”(Potok,2003 p. 312). Conflicts Emma’s conflicts were with marriage and romance. She was of the opinion that she knew more about what suited other’s needs better than they did themselves. For example, she didn’t think the farmer was good enough for Harriet and decided to find her a more suitable partner. Emma was determined that: “…she would improve her; she would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good society; she would form her opinions and her manners”(Austen, 1999, p. 17). Emma sets her sights on Mr. Elton, the local vicar whom she considers a better match for Harriet. When she tries to set them up, Mr. Elton proposes to Emma and when she refuses his proposal he goes away on a vacation. Mr. Elton is a social climber himself and sees Harriet as inferior with the result that Emma is distressed. Emma’s conflicts with romance abounds. She tries to fall in love with Frank Churchill solely because others think they would make a handsome couple. In the end however, she realizes it is Mr. Knightley that she loves despite the fact that she has had conflict with him throughout the novel over her matchmaking games. It is ultimately Mr. Knightley’s firm words that brings Emma to her knees, so to speak. Perhaps another lesson in reality for Emma was that Harriet finally ends up with the farmer, the man she initially wanted to be with. Asher Lev’s conflicts are like Emma’s not just his own, but conflicts that he causes for others. For example he causes conflicts between his parents as his mother is torn between father and son as a result of Asher’s obsession with art. The art itself is source of inner conflict for Asher with his religion. His father however, is the greatest source of conflict for Asher telling him that: “Jews in Europe are starving for the Torah ... These are Jewish lives, Asher. Nothing is more important in the eyes of the Master of the Universe than a Jewish life” (Potok,2003, p. 107). These kinds of revelations create feelings of guilt for Asher and create the inner conflict he feels. Yet he cannot give up his art. Huck’s conflict is with societal norms and finding it difficult to subscribe to them, he also knows that should he refuse to he risks hurting those that love him. Despite these conflicts, Huck demonstrates that he is always capable to making the right choices without the help of society. Unlike Emma and Asher, Huck thinks about his choices and how they might impact upon others. For instance he is conflicted over whether or not to turn Jim in. He knows that slavery is wrong, and at the same time he doesn’t think Ms. Watson, Jim’s owner deserves to be betrayed by him since she’d never done anything to hurt him. But he ultimately decides that the right thing to do was to help Jim escape. Near the end of the novel Huck is once again conflicted about taking off in the middle of the night against an emotional Aunt Sally’s wishes to meet with Tom Sawyer. Huck observes: “Laws, knows I wanted to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all intending to go, but after that, I wouldn’t ‘a’ went, not for kingdoms” (Twain, 2003 p. 282). Clearly Huck has more of a conscience than Asher and Emma. Huck might act irresponsibly at times, but he is clearly a thinker and weighs the good and bad for himself, not as mandated by society. Points of View At the heart of all threes novels Austen, Potok and Twain place their protagonists in situations where their points of view are another source of conflict for them in respect of family and religion. These differing points of view serve to foster growth and maturity for Asher, Huck and Emma. Huck’s point of view in respect of family values are conflicted, he doesn’t respect the regime but recognizes that it is a necessary evil. He sees it as a miniature version of society’s hierarchal structure. He similarly sees no real importance with religious devotions. He narrates about an experience with the widow Douglas: “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” (Twain, 2003, p. 2) Huck listens respectfully, but he is capable of making up his own mind and forming his own opinions about religion and family structures. Despite his non-conformist attitude, Huck is able to make well thought out choices. Asher Lev, is similarly able to reject both the family and religious norms although he does so more out of an obsession for art rather than out of some maturity of thought and reason. He does eventually come to terms with the pain his selfishness has caused his mother and ultimately feels her pain: “Now I thought of my mother and began to sense something of her years of anguish. Standing between two different ways fo fiving meaning to the world, and at the same time possessed by her own fears and memories, she had moved now toward me, now toward my father, keeping both worlds of meaning alive, nourishing with her tiny being, and despite her torments, both me and my father” (Potok,2003, p. 310). It is here that the reader realizes that Asher has developed an element of maturity and self-growth as a result of the conflicts growing out his differences of opinion on religion and family structure. Emma’s conflicts with different points of view are manifested most clearly in her plot to drive Harriet away from the farmer, whom she considers beneath Harriet and into a relationship with Mr. Elton whom she thinks is a better man. She is obviously of the opinion that being a man of the church and religion, Mr. Elton is a more suitable candidate for Harriet to start a family with. In reflecting on Mr. Elton’s suitability Austen writes that Emma: “…thought very highly of him as a good-humoured, well-meaning respectable young man, without any deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world”(Austen, 1999, p. 24) This is obviously a misguided judgment on Emma’s part as she soon learns that religion and respectability are not automatically synonymous. By learning this, she like Asher and Huck form more realistic views of society and mankind in their journeys toward full maturity. Conclsuion Austen’s Emma, Potok’s My Name is Asher Lev and Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn portray the difficult journey of youth to maturity. Each protagonist, although different by family structure and social connections each share a common theme. That common theme is determining what is right and wrong with society and how best to be happy in it. They each come to that realization, but not without some difficult lessons of the heart. Bibliography Austen, Jane. (1999) Emma. Dover: Dover Publications. Potok, Chaim.(2003) My Name is Asher Lev. New York: Anchor Twain, Mark. (2003) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. New York: Bantam Classics. Read More