In chapter four of My Name is Asher Lev, Asher shows two different sides to his personality. In one aspect, his artistic talent matures has he begins to draw once again. In another, his actions towards life in general are that like the child that he is. Eventually, however, he matures in both areas, realizing the adult role he must play in his life.
Asher goes through many changes as he begins to get older and realize the ability he possesses. It seems that the emotion Asher feels as he enters this stage in his growth is so strong that he must result back to drawing, his first love. This is perhaps the only way he can express his true self and what he sees. This causes him to draw wherever he is, at all times. He begins to buy supplies from Yudel Krinsky, testing out new forms of art, new tools.
Asher draws the things affecting him the most, the people he knows so well. He connects everything to the way he feels and the way he sees everyone else feeling, trying to get the most out of a picture. Later in the chapter, Asher realizes the first signs of his talent maturing. He begins to see things in different ways. "That was the night I began to realize that something was happening to my eyes. I looked at my father and saw lines and planes I had never seen before. I could feel with my eyes." This shows how Asher is expanding the depth to which he draws and is now looking to art as more than just pictures, but instead feeling.
Due to this expanse he experiences, Asher will not let anything stop him, including his parents’ need to move to Vienna. Though he is maturing as an artist, he acts like a baby when it comes to facing change, letting the reader know that he is still a little boy no matter how well he can draw. He refuses to move and causes frustration and loss of hope among his parents, even trying to convince his uncle to let him stay with them.
Asher is afraid of leaving his home and the only things that he is familiar with because they contain his drawings. It seems like he has a fear that he will leave behind his artistic talent if he moves, as if the only reason he has the talent is because it was originated by that particular street. By the end of the chapter, Asher is so exhausted with his relentless efforts and the strictness of his parents that he gives up and goes with them to get passports for the move. This I think shows the reader that even though Asher is a young boy, he is still being forced to make adult decisions and acceptances due to the work of his father. It is a form of indirect maturation in itself, for he is growing up in the process.
Overall, this chapter shows various sides of maturation in Asher and the efforts he puts forth to try to prevent himself from losing all he has.