Essay analyzes of "The Lover" by Abraham B. Yehoshua

"[She] starts to sort it out, to turn over the day, scraps, feelings, words and laughter, all are like a thin layer of rubbish that [she] gathers up and throws into the basket" (9). In A.B. Yehoshua's novel The Lover, Asya utilizes dreams to release her inner-tensions. Yehoshua employs Asya's dreams as symbolic, prophetic mechanisms that parallel the subtle, emotional conflicts within the characters and her self. Once Asya is deprived of her lover, Gabriel, …

…through her dreams. The reader's only access to Asya's character is through her subconscious and her interaction through the eyes of other characters. This creates a slanted perspective. Perhaps Asya never had an affair with Gabriel and she is simply a victim of the paranoia of her husband and daughter - we never learn of Asya's actions in real-time. Perhaps all of Asya's dreams are simply taboo impulses that she never intends to act upon.