The Asiatics: Analysis of Major Characters
"The Asiatics: Analysis of Major Characters" explores a diverse cast of individuals encountered by a young American narrator on his journey throughout Asia, from Beirut to Hong Kong. The narrator, characterized as a passive seeker of knowledge, reflects a vulnerability to the complexities of humanity, often grappling with feelings of betrayal by the friends he meets along the way. Notable characters include Antoine Samazeuilh, a charming yet unreliable French vagabond, and Feodor Krusnayaskov, a middle-aged Russian with a politically charged background who becomes a temporary ally for the narrator during a harsh imprisonment in Turkey. Hans de Hahn, a Dutch adventurer, adds to the narrative's tension through his tumultuous relationships, particularly with the young woman Ursule, leading to a dramatic love triangle. Mme de Chamellis, a sophisticated Frenchwoman, and Dr. Ainger, a dedicated physician, further enrich the story, representing the intricacies of human connection and existential struggle. Each character contributes to the overarching themes of exploration, betrayal, and the search for meaning in a world that often challenges personal convictions. This multifaceted analysis encourages readers to engage with the complexities of identity and relationships in different cultural contexts.
The Asiatics: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: Frederic Prokosch
First published: 1935
Genre: Novel
Locale: Asia, from Beirut to Hong Kong
Plot: Picaresque
Time: The 1920's
The narrator, a nameless seeker after knowledge of the world, on a pilgrimage from Beirut to Hong Kong. A twenty-two-year-old American, he is strongly built and apparently attractive. He reveals little of his background, but it is clear that he is well read and open to experience. He becomes at times weary of the betrayals of his passing companions and considers a monkish withdrawal from the world, but he realizes finally that he must remain vulnerable to the world's shocks if he is to benefit from his observations of humanity. He makes no effort to shape his life, remaining a passive register of events. He is perhaps an innocent from the New World who deliberately seeks out the most shocking and degraded elements of the old civilizations through which he journeys.
Antoine Samazeuilh (AN-twahn sahm-a-zwee), a roguish vagabond from Rouen, France. The handsome Samazeuilh is twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, muscular, and blessed with curly blond hair. He is a faithless friend, accustomed to using friends of both sexes and abandoning them at a whim. He disappears while hiking through Syria with the narrator, only to turn up again improbably in Phnom-Penh before vanishing for good in Hue.
Feodor Krusnayaskov (FYOH-dohr krew-snah-YAHSkof), a middle-aged Russian whom the narrator meets in Turkey. He is arrested with the narrator in Erzurum, and they spend two months together in a foul prison before escaping. He hides the narrator in his home, but the narrator flees in the night when he learns that Krusnayaskov is a dedicated Communist.
Hans de Hahn, a Dutch adventurer of dubious background. He is a fellow prisoner with the narrator in Erzurum, and they join up again in Peshawar. De Hahn is traveling with a beautiful young woman, Ursule, and the hastily assembled ménage àtrois collapses under sexual stress. The narrator later meets Ursule by accident in Saigon and travels with her and Samazeuilh to Hue, where de Hahn appears once more, only to die at the novel's end.
Mme de Chamellis, a beautiful, sophisticated Frenchwoman whom the narrator meets in Teheran, where she conducts a salon. She reappears in Rangoon and accompanies the narrator on a trip up the Irrawaddy River that results in her death.
Dr. Ainger, a French physician whom the narrator first meets at Mme de Chamellis' salon. They are separated after the crash of the plane in which they are flying to Meshed. The narrator finds Ainger again in an outpost near Penang, where Ainger is providing medical care to the natives. He becomes one of the most interesting and psychologically complex figures in the novel, but he dies under the pressures of his grim jungle vocation.