My Name is Asher Lev pages 197-end Full book reflection

One motif in My Name is Asher Lev was that of the “woman waiting at the window.” Rivkeh waits at the window many times during the novel. She changes and becomes very frightened after the death of her brother Yaakov. “She was no longer a light-hearted elder sister. She had become instead an efficient organizer of the temporal traffic that governed our lives.” (54) When Asher strays for the first time and comes home late, he is met with her fear and rage, “But on occasion I had the feeling there was more to it than that. Once I returned late from school after a wandering detour along Kingston Avenue. My Mother met me at the door to our apartment and screamed at me. I did not recognize her then… I did not detour again for a long time.” (54) It is this fear of the loved one that will never return that drives Rivkeh to the window on many occasions. Aryeh knows how consuming the fear can be and warns Asher to not give into his fears, which can change you. “Please Asher, don’t be like your mother. Don’t be easily frightened.” (65) This image of his mother at the widow haunts Asher, which culminates in the “Brooklyn Crucifixions.” “ I looked up as I came to the apartment house and saw my mother framed in the living room window, looking down at me.” (345) This motif can also be found in Sandra Cisneros' House on Mango Street. Many of the women sit at the window and wait. They are waiting because they find themselves in a world where they have no control. The women on Mango Street are oppressed by the men of their culture and the poverty that surrounds them. Rivkeh is oppressed by her fear and the safety of her family she cannot control. The window is a view to the outside world that cannot be controlled. No matter how many times she stands be the window, she still cannot get used to it. Asher is a grown and ready to go to Europe after graduation and his mother is still at the window. “She turned back to the window and was silent a long time. Then she said very quietly, ‘It’s strange, Asher, how a person can do something for half a lifetime and still not get used to it. I thought I was used to it. But I was fooling myself.’ ” (307) Asher is finally able to come to an understanding of his mother’s waiting by the window in the end when he decides to paint the “Brooklyn Crucifixion,” “…she had once waited for me to return from the museum, as she had once waited for my father to return in a snowstorm? And I could understand her torment now; I could see her waiting endlessly with the fear that someone she loved would be brought to her dead. I could feel her anguish.” (325)

The theme of the power of art can also be found in My Name is Asher Lev. Asher’s art has the power to make the world pretty and thus soothe his mother by painting the pretty birds and flowers. “Paint pretty pictures, Asher, she had said. Make the world pretty.” (325) As Asher fosters his gift, he discovers even more power in his art. His art has the power to consume him. “ I found myself flooded with the shapes and textures of the world around me… I was seeing with another pair of eyes that had suddenly come awake. I sat still in my chair and felt frightened.” (108) “ I did not even know I was drawing it.” (125) Asher is able to seek revenge through his art. When a classmate continuously teases and taunts Asher, Asher uses the power of his art to seek vengeance for himself and stop the teasing. “I drew the terror on the faces of the dead and the damned. I made all the faces his face, pimply, scrawny---eyes bulging, mouths open, shrieking in horror. I exaggerated the talons and painted ears of Charon; I darkened his face, bringing out the whites of his raging eyes.” (241) Asher puts the drawing in his classmate’s Gemorra. The classmate avoided Asher. Asher’s art becomes so much a part of him that he panics when his work is sold and taken away. The years of his life was poured out into his paintings and now they were gone. Asher felt empty. “My God, they’re swallowing up my world faster than I can paint it.” (301) Finally, Asher decides to paint the truth and feelings that he sees. Once the idea of painting his mother’s torment and anguish came to him, he had to truthfully paint what he knew to be the truth. “I knew there would be no other way to do it. No one says you have to paint ultimate anguish and torment. But if you are driven to paint it, you have no other way.” (326) This was an act of betrayal and Asher knew it as soon as the painting was complete. “I took the canvas down and put it against a wall. I felt vaguely unclean, as if I had betrayed a friend.” The final power of art is the God-like ability to create something out of nothing. Having done so he prays for forgiveness and understanding from the Master of the Universe. “I had not imagined them to be so powerful…and saw my father and mother looking at the paintings. Then I turned away, terrified before such an act of creation.” (357) The final realization of the power of art and the artist is when Asher looks at his hands and reflects on the power that is contained in his hands. “Power to create and destroy. Power to bring pleasure and pain. Power to amuse and horrify. There was in that hand the demonic and the divine at one and the same time…Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts people he loves. Then be a great painter, Asher Lev; that will be the only justification for all the pain you will cause.” (367) In this final statement we also see the many ironies that are at play in this novel. The irony that when his father is away, he becomes more apart of Asher’s life and thoughts than when he is in his apartment on a daily basis. It is also ironic that he must seek out Christian art to find the true level of anguish and torment seen in his mother. Once again, like his grandfather, the Christians have an influence in destroying the family. Although Asher and his father are in constant conflict with each other, they are so much alike. They are both so passionate about their work. They are both able to create something out of nothing. It is their mother that provides a balance to their worlds. The idea of balance can also be seen in this novel. The ideas of a balance between the individual and the community they are a apart of. The balance of family desires and beliefs and the individuals.

This was an excellent novel rich in themes, allusions, religious imagery, and literary interpretations. I could write for a very long time on the many insights this novel gives.
~ An excellent read.