61 pages • 2 hours read
Helene WeckerThe Golem and the Jinni
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Character Analysis
Chava
Chava is one of the protagonists of The Golem and the Jinni. She is a Golem whom Yehudah Schaalman created at the request of a man named Otto Rotfeld, who desired a wife to accompany him to America. According to Jewish mythology and folklore, Golems, which are often referred to as creatures of burden, were sculpted from clay and animated through Kabbalistic rituals. In the world of the novel, Golems do not have much sentience and are prone to losing control and violence. However, Schaalman makes creates Chava to be curious, intelligent, and pragmatic because Rotfeld wants her to be a wife rather than simply a servant. A dying Rotfeld awakens Chava during his journey to America, and when he dies, she is left to fend for herself in a strange world. She can read people’s minds to the extent of learning their wants, needs, and desires, which is as much a burden as a gift. Her Golem nature compels her to help everyone she meets, but giving in to these urges constantly gets her into trouble. After a kindly old rabbi named Avram Meyer takes her in, she learns to control her nature and to live as a human. As Chava navigates New York City, Wecker uses her status as an outsider to humanity to create a clear allegory about the immigrant experience. In this way, Chava’s fantastical nature is grounded by one that is deeply human. Throughout the novel, Chava’s character constantly contends with her unexpected autonomy, and as she grapples to define her sense of self, Wecker implicitly questions the effects of nature or nurture on the essence of identity.
Ahmad
Ahmad is the second protagonist of The Golem and the Jinni. He is a centuries-old Jinni, mercurial and self-involved. At the novel’s beginning, Ahmad is surly and solitary. However, he has no choice but to rely on the kindness of Arbeely, the man who accidentally releases him. He is drawn to metalsmithing and quickly becomes adept at the trade as Arbeely teaches him to blend in as a human. He cannot access many of his abilities and is vulnerable and frustrated as a result. During his time in New York City, Ahmad often struggles to act human and to adapt to new beliefs and customs. For example, he rejects the idea of marriage and God: two things that the Syrian community around him values deeply. In this way, Ahmad’s story mirrors that of an immigrant who struggles to adapt to the norms of a new society even as he tries to preserve his own identity. However, despite his general dislike of humanity and his suspicion of its various customs, he is also endlessly curious about people. Additionally, he often takes careless risks, which causes others to reprimand him. Chava believes that Ahmad should recognize the repercussions that his choices have on others such as Sophia Winston, who grows ill after their affair led to her having a miscarriage. As he gets to know Chava, Ahmad also begins to acknowledge the consequences of his own actions.
By the novel’s conclusion, Ahmad matures enough to weave his Jinni identity together with his human one. With his disparate identities folded into one, Ahmad becomes more settled and is finally able to accept the mistakes of his past, and he finds ways to atone for the deaths of Fadwa and Abu Yusuf. When Ahmad returns to Syria, he finds their final resting place and buries them, mimicking the funeral traditions that he learned when they were conducted for Saleh and Nadia earlier in the novel. He now completes his new identity by taking on Fadwa and Abu Yusuf’s family name as his own. In this way, he intends for their legacy to live on. This gesture is one that he would not have made at the novel’s beginning.
Yehudah Schaalman
Yehudah Schaalman is the primary antagonist of the novel. At the beginning of the story, he is an outcast in Konig who survives by selling love spells, curses, and various other dark magical services. When Rotfeld approaches him and asks him to create a Golem to be his wife, Schaalman is intrigued by the challenge of imbuing a Golem with enough sentience and personality that it might pass as human. His lack of ethics is revealed when Chava later guesses that certain key features (such as her teeth, hair, and fingernails) were likely taken from a cadaver. The narrative eventually reveals that Schaalman had lived a difficult life ever since he realized his affinity for dark magic and knew that he was born damned.
He has long wished to find the key to eternal life, and while he is wondering about the fate of Rotfeld, his magical talents transport him to New York via astral projection. He learns that the key to immortality is somewhere in that city. He also later discovers that he is the spiritual reincarnation of Wahab ibn Malik, a dark wizard from ancient Syria. At the end of the novel, he gains access to his memories and to all of his earlier reincarnations. Schaalman is therefore connected to Ahmad in the same way as Malik. Despite understanding that Malik is the reason he has suffered all his life, Schaalman embraces the dark destiny that the wizard has laid out for him instead of turning away from it. He decides that he will be the only reincarnation of Malik to be successful in the pursuit of immortality. This choice is tied to the complex relationship of Nature Versus Nurture, a theme that Wecker explores throughout the novel. Wecker makes it clear that Schaalman’s life is a tragedy in which he is complicit and which he could have changed at any time. However, he continues in Malik’s power-hungry footsteps by enslaving Chava and seizing control of Ahmad’s Jinni powers. He is stopped only when Saleh sacrifices himself to seal Schaalman in the Jinni’s original flask.
Rabbi Avram Meyer
Avram Meyer is Chava’s mentor and serves as a direct foil to Schaalman. Both men embrace the study of the mystical arts, but whereas Schaalman is cruel and selfish, Avram is kind and generous. He has a background in Jewish mysticism that he learned at Yeshiva, like Schaalman; however, instead of learning and using it for his own gain, he recognizes the cost of using magic. When he encounters Chava, he realizes that he has a responsibility to either help or destroy her. Ultimately, he helps Chava learn about humanity and develops a paternal affection for her. He works to find a way to mitigate the risk that her Golem nature poses both to herself and to the local Jewish community. In this endeavor, he illustrates the same wisdom and intelligence that Schaalman possesses, but he draws a stark contrast in his intent. He even considers what will happen to Chava when he dies, debating who would be a good replacement master or guardian for her.
Avram teaches Chava her first lessons about the complexities of the human experience, and he also explains concepts of faith and tradition and serves as a mentor for her when she first arrives in New York. He is the first character to recognize Chava’s autonomy and encourage her to build on her humanity. An ethical man to his very last breath, he grapples with the reality of her sentience and tries to find a solution to the threat she represents without taking away her free will. Before his death by a heart attack, Avram agonizes over the implications of binding her to a new master. He struggles with the fatherly role he has taken on with Chava and the responsibility of a rabbi. Thus, Wecker uses the character of Avram as a conduit to ask important questions about the human experience. Without him, many of the story’s most morally complex moments would vanish, which would remove the realistic nature of the novel and leave only the fantastical elements.
