The Chosen – Malter’s Development- Essay, Research Paper

The Chosen – Malter’s Development-

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 known

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 to what his heart leads him.”

The most developing character from the novel is Reuven Malter.

One of the ways that he developes in the novel is in hus understanding

of friendship. His friendship with D\fanny 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 because of the

teachings of his father. Reuven goes from not being able to have a

civil conversation with Danny to becoming his best friend with whom he

spens all of his free time, studies Talmud and goes to college. Reuven

truly grows because he leans, 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, 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. 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. He almost loses his vision, his father nearly works

himself to death, six million Jews are butchered in Europe, and

Danny’s brother’s poor health threatens Danny’s choice to not become a

tzaddik. 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 with using allusion and metaphor. Very

subtly throughout the book he uses this for the purposes of renforcing

his points, foreshadowing, and to make the book a better read when

you’ve read it previously and know the outcome. One example of this,

one that I missed the first time I read the book in 7th grade is the

paragraph at the end of chapter nine where Reuven is sitting on his

porch and sees a fly trapped in a spider’s web with the arachnid

builder approaching. 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) that is a metaphor for the Hasidic

clan that has Danny somewhat captured and expected to become a

tzaddik.