By Chaim Potok One of the most emotional scenes from Chaim Potok's The Chosen is when Reuven goes with Danny Saunders to talk to his father. Danny has a great mind and wants to use it to study psychology, not become a Hasidic tzaddik. The two go into Reb Saunders' study to explain to him what is going to happen, and before Danny can bring it up, his father does. Reb Saunders explains to the two friends that he already knows that Reuven is going to go for his smicha and Danny, who is in line to become the next tzaddik of his people, will not. This relates to the motif of "Individuality" and the theme of "Danny's choice of going with the family dynasty or do what his heart leads him." The character that shows the most growth is Reuven Malter. One of the ways that he develops in the novel is in his understanding of friendship. His friendship with Danny Saunders is encouraged by his father, but he is wary of it at first because Danny is a Hasid, and regards regular Orthodox Jews as apikorsim. Reuven goes from not being able to have a civil conversation with Danny to becoming his best friend with whom he spends all of his free time, studies Talmud and goes to college. Reuven truly grows because he learns, as his father says, what it is to be a friend. Another way that Reuven grows is that he learns to appreciate different people and their ideas. He starts out hating Hasidim because it's the "pious" thing to do, even though his father (who I see as the Atticus Finch of this novel) keeps telling him that it's okay to disagree with ideas, but hating a person because of them is intolerable. Through his friendship with Danny, studies with Reb Saunders, a brief crush on Danny's sister (who was never given a name), and time spent in the Hasidic community, he learns that Hasids are people too with their own ideas and beliefs that are as valuable as his own. He learns why they think, act, speak, and dress the way that they do and comes to grips with the fact that he doesn't have a monopoly on virtue. A third way in which Reuven grows, though the book doesn't really talk about it a great deal, is in his appreciation of life, or cha'im in Hebrew. Even though he almost loses his vision, his father nearly works himself to death, six million Jews are butchered inEurope , and Danny's brother's poor health threatens Danny's choice to not become a tzaddik, Reuven gains a deeper understanding of the meaning of life. When his eye is out of order he can't read, and indeed does remark that it's very difficult to live without reading, especially with a voracious appetite for learning such as his. His father almost dies twice and he talks about how difficult it is to live all alone in silence (which is a metaphor alluding to Danny's everyday life) for the month while his father is in the hospital. He sees Reb Saunders and his father feeling the suffering of the six million dead, Saunders by crying and being silent, David Malter by working for the creation of a Jewish state and being a leader in the movement, in addition to teaching at a yeshiva and adult education classes. And of course Danny is very worried by his brother's illness (hemophillia?) because if he dies it will be even harded for Danny to turn down his tzaddikship. By the end of the book, Reuven Malter is a very changed character. Potok is an expert in the way he uses allusion and metaphor to reinforce his points. He intertwines them very subtly and they can easily be overlooked by the reader. One example of this is when I missed the significance of chapter nine. It took two readings before I realized what the author was implying when he shows Reuven sitting on his porch, watching a fly trapped in a spider's web. He blows on the fly, first softly, and then more harshly, and the fly is free and safe from the danger of the spider. This is a metaphor to Danny being trapped in the "filmy, almost invisible strands of the web" (165) of the Hasidic clan who expect him to become a tzaddik.
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