Asher Lev from a very young age knew he had a gift for drawing. He would draw everything that filled his mind, and whatever he felt. It was a way for him to express his feelings and what he saw in the world around him. However he was raised in a Hasidic community by a very conservative Hasidic father who did not approve of his drawings. But for Asher art was his desire. Art was how he thought. So he would have to disregard his family and community's wishes to pursue his love and passion for art. In the novel My Name Is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok, Asher dreams of his disapproving mythic ancestor symbolize Asher's inner conflict between his Hasidic religion and his ability and passion for art. Asher’s mythic ancestor starts as someone to live up…show more content… Asher heard so much of this man he began to dream of him, “That great man would come to me in my dreams and echo my father's queries about the latest bare wall I had decorated and the sacred margins I had that day filled with drawings. It was no joy waking up after a dream about that man. He left a taste of thunder in my mouth”(page 4). Asher’s imagination took the great-great grandfather and created a mythic ancestor. This mythic ancestor is not a demon, he is not being haunted, but it is Asher's own subconscious mind. The mythic Ancestor reflects and characterizes Asher’s insecurities and anxieties. So when Asher does something most in his community would not approve the mythic ancestor appears in his dreams. One day when Asher is young he draws his mother while she is sick with cigarette ash. His father sees his drawing and is very upset, that night Asher’s mythic ancestor is in his dreams “He went into a rage. He stormed about the room. He was huge. He towered over me. His dark-beard cast huge swaying shadows across the rug. Wasting time, wasting time, he thundered. Playing, drawing, wasting time.”(page 36). The mythic ancestor becomes in Asher’s mind the half of
