The Chosen Essay, Research Paper
Malter & # 8217 ; s Development in The Chosen
One of the most emotional scenes from Chaim Potok & # 8217 ; s The Chosen is when
Reuven goes with Danny Saunders to speak to his male parent. Danny has a great
head and wants to utilize it to analyze psychological science, non go a Hassidic
tzaddik. The two go into Reb Saunders & # 8217 ; survey to explicate to him what is
traveling to go on, and before Danny can convey it up, his male parent does. Reb
Saunders explains to the two friends that he already known that Reuven
is traveling to travel for his smicha and Danny, who is in line to go the
following tzaddik of his people, will non. This relates to the motive of
& # 8220 ; Individuality & # 8221 ; and the subject of & # 8220 ; Danny & # 8217 ; s pick of traveling with the
household dynasty or to what his bosom leads him. & # 8221 ;
The most underdeveloped character from the novel is Reuven Malter. One of
the ways that he developes in the novel is in hus apprehension of
friendly relationship. His friendly relationship with Dfanny Saunders is encouraged by his
male parent, but he is wary of it at first because Danny is a Hasid, and
respects regular Orthodox Jews as apikorsim because of the instructions of
his male parent. Reuven goes from non being able to hold a civil conversation
with Danny to going his best friend with whom he spens all of his
free clip, surveies Talmud and goes to college. Reuven genuinely grows
because he leans, as his male parent says, what it is to be a friend. Another
manner that Reuven grows is that he learns to appreciate different people
and their thoughts. He starts out detesting Hasidim because it & # 8217 ; s the & # 8220 ; pious & # 8221 ;
thing to make, even though his male parent ( who I see as the Atticus Finch of
this novel ) keeps stating him that it & # 8217 ; s okay to differ with thoughts, but
detesting a individual because of them is unbearable. Through his friendly relationship
with Danny, surveies with Reb Saunders, brief crush on Danny & # 8217 ; s sister
( who was ne’er given a name ) , and clip spent in the Hasidic community,
he learns that Hasids are people excessively with their ain thoughts and beliefs
that are every bit valuable as his. He learns why they think, act, speak, and
frock the manner that they do and comes to clasps with the fact that he
doesn & # 8217 ; Ts have a monopoly on virtuousness. A 3rd manner in which Reuven grows,
though the book doesn & # 8217 ; t truly speak about it a great trade, is in his
grasp of life, or cha & # 8217 ; im in Hebrew. He about loses his vision,
his male parent about works himself to decease, six million Hebrews are
butchered in Europe, and Danny & # 8217 ; s brother & # 8217 ; s hapless wellness threatens Danny & # 8217 ; s
pick to non go a tzaddik. When his oculus is out of order he can & # 8217 ; T
read, and so does note that it & # 8217 ; s really hard to populate without
reading, particularly with a rapacious appetency for larning such as his.
His male parent about dies twice and he talks about how hard it is to
unrecorded all entirely in silence ( which is a metaphor touching to Danny & # 8217 ; s
mundane life ) for the month while his male parent is in the infirmary. He
sees Reb Saunders and his male parent experiencing the agony of the six
million dead, Saunders by shouting and being soundless, David Malter by
working for the creative activity of a Judaic province and being a leader in the
motion, in add-on to learning at a yeshiva and grownup instruction
categories. And of class Danny is really disquieted by his brother & # 8217 ; s unwellness
( hemophillia? ) because if he dies it will be even harded for Danny to
turn down his tzaddikship. By the terminal of the book, Reuven Malter is a
really changed character.
Potok is an expert with utilizing allusion and metaphor. Very subtly
throughout the book he uses this for the intents of renforcing his
points, prefiguration, and to do the book a better read when you & # 8217 ; ve
read it antecedently and cognize the result. One illustration of this, one that I
missed the first clip I read the book in 7th class is the paragraph at
the terminal of chapter nine where Reuven is sitting on his porch and sees a
fly trapped in a spider & # 8217 ; s web with the arachnoid builder approaching. He
blows on the fly, foremost quietly, and so 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 & # 8220 ; filmy, about unseeable strands of the web & # 8221 ; ( 165 )
that is a metaphor for the Hasidic kin that has Danny slightly captured
and expected to go a tzaddik.
