I’ve recently begun rereading Asimov’s Foundation series, admittedly because I wanted to read them before beginning the Series on Apple+. (I’ve read them before, I think, but I was probably 12 at the time). I’ve noticed a pattern of his describing antagonists as having large or hooked noses. It’s so commonplace in the texts that I suspected Magnifico’s true identity based purely on his physical description. Even now, I’ve just been introduced (in the third book) to Lev Meirus, First Minister of Kalgan, and the initial description of him (“his long, nervous fingers stroking absently and rhythmically the deep line that curved from hooked nose along gaunt and sunken cheek…”) is enough to cue my “bad guy” radar.
I’m curious about the pattern, which is consistent with a lot of problematic literary tropes that cast antagonists in antisemitic caricature. And yet Asimov was Jewish himself by birth and by all accounts quite progressive and humanistic in his views. Anybody have a read on these patterns?
by whathamstas
3 Comments
I’ve never looked at it through that lens, I just thought it was a “villainous” physical characteristic he’d arbitrarily chosen. Maybe someone in his life with a hook nose was a jerk to him, but I doubt it was anything more substantial than that.
What is noticed from I-robot is that he has a bit of a disdain for Europe and especially for Germans.
Is it possible that it’s the other way around? I.e. maybe the association “hooked nose = bad” came first, and then because of that it became an antisemitic caricature? This feels like a question for a historian.