“The way of the fool seems right to him, but a wise man listens to advice.” In his novella, The Chosen, Chaim Potok describes two contrasting Jewish families in the 1930’s and 40’s. As members of a moderate Jewish sect, the Malters practice their religion with reverence, but also avail themselves of modern entertainment forbidden by strict Jews, such as watching a film at the theater. Contrastingly, the Saunders lead the Hasid sect in the area, one of the most conservative and strict orders. Quiet Reb Saunders displays, zeal, sorrow, and contemplation while guiding his flock of Hasid Jews.…
The Chosen is a phenomenal book so far. In this novel, I can really appreciate Chaim Potok’s creative mind. I find it so interesting how hate can turn to friendship. I also find it interesting that two Jews living in the same area can hate each other. How do two young men who come from similar backgrounds…hate each other? The author does a wonderful job of explaining how they do not believe in exactly the same things, but indeed are similar. Danny’s family is more “traditional” while Reuven’s family is more “modern”, but both are Jews living in a relatively tense time.…
“He was sitting up in the bed, playing a game of cards with himself and smiling broadly.” (39) Tony Savo sits there in his hospital bed for nearly the entirety of his appearance in The Chosen, by Chaim Potok. Reuven Malter, the main character, gets a bed right next to Tony’s and gets an in-depth look at Tony’s character. Tony Savo brings some much-needed comic relief to a situation and atmosphere of injury and suspense. This is accomplished through his carefree manner, and his slang vocabulary that makes the reader think about what exactly he means. But Mr. Savo is certainly not pure and flawless, for he does show an example of reading a book by its cover in the case of Danny Saunders. Mr. Savo brings much needed relief to a painful scenario by the light air that surrounds him and his informal speech, but he also demonstrates an inaccurate and insensitive way of judging people.…
He states that during his time there, the staff impressed him with his ability to make the child almost forget that they are in a hospital. This story takes place in Iowa City and is directed to all Iowa…
To begin, Reb Saunders shows determination. This means having made a firm decision and being resolved not to change it. In the story, when Reb Saunders made a decision, he rarely changed it. When Danny told Reuven about his father, Danny said, “He’s a very strong-willed person. When he makes up his mind about something, that’s it,…
Hospital Patient: He says that he is going to die soon, and warns Eliezer that there are more “selections” at the hospital.…
In Proverbs 18:15 “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.” In the book The Chosen by Chaim Potok, The similarities or the characters through the entirety of the book, in the book, David, Danny, and Reuven all share the love for knowledge and wanting to know more and more every day about everything and anything they can get their hands on. The love and pursuit of knowledge with these three men is a very interesting, in how much they love to learn and they want for more and more knowledge.…
“The Chosen” by Chaim Potok inspires a story of a relationship between two friends. In the novel Potok shows the change in motives that the main characters build up to make new connections. The protagonist, Reuven Malter experiences changes that later on will have an effect at the end. Communication and relationships were very important in the novel as it played a major role. The author shows a motive for each character in the novel. The novel also shows that the quote “True happiness consists not in multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice” can be stated as the theme for the book.…
The Chosen is a novel written by Chaim Potok that centers around two Jewish teens growing up in Brooklyn, New York in the 1940s, and their struggle to reach adulthood and determine what their personal beliefs and goals are. Through a conflict revolving around the relationship between a father and son, supporting details about the life and beliefs of members of the Jewish community during the 1940s, and by describing the growth of a character through the eyes of his best friend, the author illustrates the importance of relying on loved ones during hard times.…
“Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you.” This famous verse comes from Exodus 20:12 and Chaim Potok really emphasized respecting and reverence to patriarchy in his book The Chosen. In this book, the main characters, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders, both have an amazing admiration for the fathers. Both their fathers have very distinct beliefs and Danny and Reuven show reverence to them in many ways. Not only do the boys obey their fathers but they do it with respect and they also take care of their fathers throughout the book. Danny and Reuven demonstrate a reverence to patriarchy through submission, taking care of, and respecting their fathers.…
Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders have of rough start to their relationship until they realize their similarities. This relationship's bond is tested when a conflict occurs between them. Danny and Reuven are taught to hate each other from the beginning because of their religious disagreements. Danny is obviously more violent than Reuven as shown by his yelling at…
Patrick Dismuke was a young African American boy, at the age of fifteen when the story starts, and a regular patient at Hermann Hospital. Patrick was born with a severe case of Hirschsprung’s disease, a disorder of the digestive tract, and was unable to digest his food. Throughout Patrick’s life, he spent more days in the hospital than out and came to be quite comfortable with the environment and staff at Hermann. Due to his disease his only way of nutrition was through a feeding tube, unfortunately these tubes often got infected. Since Patrick’s immune system was also weak, the infections were almost as bad as the disease itself. The doctors were forced to put the boy through surgery multiple times to replace infected tubes, each time making him weaker and bringing him closer to death. Once the he became too weak for the surgeries, the doctors were faced with a dilemma- to do surgery or not? The surgery to place a new tube directly into his heart would be risky and potentially kill him, but if the surgery did not occur, the infection would slowly destroy his body and block the tube causing him to starve to death. Before any decisions could be made, the doctors needed to consult the patients mother, Oria Dismuke, was a single mother who worked extensive hours at whatever jobs she could find sometimes working as many as three at a time. Oria was a quiet and didn’t have much to say about her opinion, it’s not that she didn’t care; she was just exhausted and wanted her son to be both happy and comfortable. Along with the mother, the doctors also had to meet with a hospital ethics committee before taking action. The committee met many times throughout the book and made many contradictory decisions depending on his progress at the time of the meeting. First, the committee decides to make Patrick DNR but he began to get better, so after consulting him, they ended up doing another risky surgery. The committee seemed…
The main character Jonas when he becomes braver and develops the feeling of love. Those changes helps him throughout the story develops as a character. Jonas changes majorly in the novel The Giver in many way and a lot of the time it can be just little ways he change, but some are very big and have a great effect. The novel The Giver dystopian fiction novel about how a near perfect community has the main character, Jonas, is assigned the job of being the new Receiver and the Receiver's job is to use the memories of the past life before to advise the council about decisions that they can’t make. He given these memories and realizes that he doesn’t want to be apart of the “near perfect” community so he comes up with a way to save gabe, who stayed at his dwelling because his father had to take care of him to see if he would grow enough but he doesn’t so would have been executed or “released” before jonas saved him, and later he escapes the community.…
Hardships sorrowfully fall on every one, whether it be your age or size. Handling these hardships takes respect, kindness, and perseverance to both who withstand and overcome these difficult obstacles. In Chaim Potok`s The Chosen, a young man Revun Malter represents a character of a true role model. He intelligibly shows strong signs of honor, sympathy, and courage when dealing with these such problems, and uses his finest ability to correct learn from his mistakes. Therefore, each and every day Revun has to make big steps to construct himself to become a fine young man. Throughout the book, Revun inspires to act as an honorable son and person and help his friends and family through these hard times and occurring hardships. He leads himself by respecting others, acting kindly, and asking God for perseverance to help him become a trustworthy role model.…
In “The Chosen” by Chaim Potok, one of the themes that it addresses is coming of age for young adults. It is quite a journey for everyone and even for Danny. Danny has to find what he truly wants in life, which is to become a psychologist, and tell his father. Everyone has different experiences and different feelings when going through this stage of life, which is finding your true self. In the story, Danny goes through the three different stages of coming of age, realization, experimentation, and reintegration. Everyone can relate to this story, no matter what age; you either have gone through it, are about to, or are going through the difficult process of coming of age. My advice for young adults going through this is just be you; don’t worry…