Asher, Emma, Huck Finn, they all have a mentor at some point in their lives. Huck is guided by Jim, who although described like a child who needs constant guidance (like all the slaves were thought to be in that time), is often sounding like the voice of reason. Asher is helped to follow his love for art by his mother first, then the Rebbe steps in and brings him under the guidance of Jakob Kahn, an experienced and famous artist who will act as his final mentor. The protagonists in all three novels are very strong willed, intelligent young people who are willing to sacrifice a lot for their personal freedom and for their right to remain true to themselves. They are prepared to go a long way to...
Although acting in their own interested, they are also dedicated to those around them. Huck risks his own safety to save Jim, the runaway slave who became his friend. Beside her own satisfaction for a good deed, Emma is genuinely interested in the well being of those around her, regardless of their social status. And finally, the child Asher understands his mother's need to be beside his father and lets her go to Vienna.
Huckleberry Finn's violent, alcoholic father, after Finn escapes from the Widow, is an extremely negative paternal force of socialization. Finn, rather than be integrated into society like Emma, must leave society and find his own values, rather than the hypocritical values imposed upon him by others. The most fundamental of these values are his friendship with Jim, an escaped Black slave, who is his truest friend in the novel.
The other characters in the novel are also used very effectively to illustrate the growing self-awareness of each of these characters. In Emma, the characters of Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith are especially important in this regard. Emma's misguided attempts to find a "suitable" husband for Harriet make her own prejudices and weaknesses of mind and spirit very clear (Austen, 1815). The great irony of the novel occurs when Emma,
Right away, the reader is told that the plot will center on class, wealth, and Emma's comfort, and happiness. All of these things are shaken in Emma's world; the machinations of the upper-class in her society prove far more brutal then the naive Emma of the opening chapters expected. As she goes through the wringer of the plot, the reader watches her character progress from the flat simplicity implied
By the final chapter, although Huck has come to like Silas and Sally, he knows that they are still a part of the society he has come to distrust and fear so, before the dust from his adventures is fully settled he is already planning to detach himself again:" but I reckon I got to light out for the territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going
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