Comparing Minorities as Portrayed in My Name is Asher Lev, Joy Luck Club, and Black Like Me :: comparison compare contrast essays

Minorities in America as Portrayed in My attain is Asher Lev, Joy Luck Club, and Black equivalent Me Conflicting values are a constant issue in society. In diverse civilizations minorities become bring out ruled by the majority. In Twentieth ascorbic acid American culture there are many difficulties in existing as a minority. The books My plant is Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok, and the Joy Luck Club, by Amy Tan, portray the aspect of being torn between two cultures as a conflict for todays minorities. Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin, examines the hardships for a minority by progressively revealing them. The events of the three authors lives reflect how they portray the common theme of the difficulties for a Twentieth Century minority. My Name is Asher Lev demonstrates that the aspect of the protagonist being torn between two cultures is a difficulty for minorities in America. Asher Lev was torn between being an artist and his Jewish community. In the novel, Potok describes in detail the feelings, dilemmas and questions minorities bump into while trying to obey their traditions and their passions at the same time (Chaim). The main character, Asher Lev, chooses to be an artist and winds up having to expose himself from his life history. He explains, I am a traitor, an apostate, a self-hater, an inflicter of shame upon my family, my friends, my people also I am a mocker of ideas sacred to Christians (Potok 1). By choosing the life of an artist, Asher faces a life of continuous pain due to betrayal to his family. The protagonists painting of the Brooklyn Crucifixion raises disturbing questions about anti-Semitism, conflict between Christians and Jews, and the tension between delicate conventions and religious imperatives (My Name is Asher Lev 2877). It contradicted everything his family had raised him to believe in. He never fits into society since he defies his people and mocks the majority in this painting. Asher describes how his double culture life is doomed. Asher Lev . . . was the electric razor of the Master of the Universe and the Other Side. Asher Lev paints good pictures and hurts people he loves (Potok 348). Asher moves from the religious to the secular world in the course of the novel. This is because Potoks novels assume the impossibility of existing in both the religious and secular spheres (Potok, Chaim 339).