The chosen by Chaim Potok

             The Chosen is a novel very well written that tells of the ever lasting and powerful bonds of pain and love of two fathers and two sons and how these bonds change as the son becomes a man. It is also the tale of a hatred turned friendship, and the incredible bond also formed between Danny and Reuven.
             Danny is brilliant yet very moody and angry (279). He is raised in silence and does not understand why his father does not talk to him. He is expected to inherit his father's position as rabbi, which is something that he desperately does not want to do; he wants to become a psychologist (69). This pent up angel led him to his friendship with Reuven, not because he hit him in the eye with a baseball but because Reuven had a soul that told Danny this was someone that he could finally open up to and express himself to, someone who could be trusted and could be a true friend. Danny knows his father loves him but he doesn't understand him. He struggles through life without speaking to his father except through Talmud lessons. (79) Although he doesn't get it, he accepts it. Danny also turns to reading Freud, hoping to figure out the human mind and thus to understand the silence his father maintains. He doesn't find his answers in the books, but he does find it as a way to handle his pain and anger
             Reuven is a great friend to Danny; he listens to him when he gripes about his father, about becoming a rabbi, about Freud and psychological experiments. Reuvan becomes angry when silence is forced between the boys by Danny's father and even angrier afterward at the continuing silence between father and son. Reuvan does not understand how a father can be so cold; Reuvan's own father cannot even explain.
             "'Reuvan the silence between Danny and Reb Saunders. Is it continuing?"
             His face was sad. 'A father can bring up a child any way he
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The chosen by Chaim Potok. (1969, December 31). In MegaEssays.com. Retrieved 13:13, July 01, 2025, from https://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/28734.html