ipl-logo

Dangerous Decisions In Chaim Potok's The Chosen

417 Words2 Pages

Every life decision that we make reveals part of our character. If we decide to make corrupt decisions, then we most likely have an unethical personality. In the book The Chosen, Chaim Potok uses Danny Saunders to show that dangerous decisions reveal morbid personalities. The decisions he makes as a great baseball player and intelligent Jew, reflect his violent and rebellious personality. With this, his lonely side will also be discovered. Danny Saunders proves to be rebellious, lonely, and violent which are three dangerous traits he obtains. Children make decisions every day. Some of those choices may be with their parents requesting a chore from them or an act of kindness. By defying their parents’ wishes, they choose to rebel against their …show more content…

It will lead to hurt and suffering. Around the beginning of the novel, The Chosen, Danny is portrayed as a solitary young man. This becomes revealed when Reuven discusses with his father, his newborn relationship with Danny. Reuven’s dad describes Danny as being “terribly torn” and “lonely” (113). Danny’s description by others show that he can feel secluded at times. Undoubtedly, Danny is heading down a dangerous path. “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” ~ Issac Asimov. In addition to displaying loneliness, Danny also thinks violently. For instance, during the baseball game, both Reuven and Danny become competitive. In the game, Danny ends up injuring Reuven and sending him to the hospital. He explains to him how he “wanted to walk over to” Reuven “and open” his “head with” his “bat” (71). Danny Saunders shows violence by allowing himself to harbor negative thoughts towards Reuven. Danny’s solitary personality joins together with a cruel mind. Violence, rebellion, and loneliness obviously show to be dangerous. They can make a person insalubrious in the mind. They are hazardous and should not be strived for. Danny Saunders, a young teenage boy, attains all three of these characteristics. He is a youth who obtains dangerous traits. As a result, these three characteristics confirm Danny’s dangerous

Show More
Related
627 Words | 3 Pages

Danny also despite getting told a lot of times to stop digging his nails in his wrist on page 4 it says “he digs into his wrist some more with his nails. Breaks previously broken skin and pulls away. A smear of blood he wipes away with his other hand, rubs off across his dark jeans. Back at home his mom is alway on him to stop digging, but that only wants him to dig more” the reason he does that is to use physical pain to get rid of his emotional pain caused by his dad leaving him and his family and that is the reason why I chose mental health as a

Read More
932 Words | 4 Pages

While silence is not considered to be the absolute best way to rear children, one cannot deny the effect and impression it made on not only Danny, but also the Malters. Even Reuven’s father at times remained silent when he could have mentioned things about which he had prior knowledge, not completely dissimilarly to Reb Saunders’ approach. One could assume that he desired for Reuven (and Danny, by default) to come to certain realizations himself. Regardless of the motivations behind any character’s choice of silence, this epigraph genuinely depicts the alleged value of silence

Read More
360 Words | 2 Pages

Throughout the world, violence has occurred in some form in each individual’s life since the beginning of time. Violence is any action, inaction, or structural arrangement that results in physical or nonphysical harm to one or more animals. There are three types of violence to classify the act, which is Institutional, Interpersonal, and Structural. Within each type of violence are specific categories that occur, such as family, religion, educational, corporate, and even economical violence.

Read More
569 Words | 3 Pages

When they meet at the baseball field they judge each other based on rumors they have heard or by the actions of the team. Reuven thinks of them as the “whole snooty bunch of Hasidim” (Chosen 62). Reuven thought Danny was a malicious person because he knew that Danny purposely tried to hit him. But later when Reuven opened up to Danny and stopped being so judgmental, Reuven realized that Danny was kind and just needed a friend. When Reuven is hit with the baseball, there is a chance he might be blind.

Read More
1122 Words | 5 Pages

Danny could have acted iff the world had fallen down on him. But Danny acted like nothing happened and soldiered on. In the book Mexican White Boy there is another example of Danny

Read More
1558 Words | 7 Pages

In his book The Promise Chaim Potok leads the reader on a heartbreaking journey full of spiritual conflict and decision. As a sequel to The Chosen, The Promise picks up with Reuven Malter, the main character and a Jewish man now in his mid-twenties, attending Hirsch University, a Jewish seminary in Brooklyn, New York. Reuven keeps his friendship with Danny Saunders, whom he met on a baseball field during his teenage years and later went to college with, even though they now go their separate ways as Reuven becomes a rabbi, and Danny practices psychology. During the summer Reuven dates Rachel Gordon, the niece of Abraham Gordon, a man excommunicated from the Jewish society, and meets Abraham’s son, Michael, a stubborn teen with a mental issue. Also, over the same summer Reuven’s father, David Malter, wrote a controversial book about the Talmud.

Read More
913 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout history, people have discussed the nature of man and whether man is inherently good, evil, or something else. However, man has proven himself to be guided by his own internal conflicts, which lead him to make certain decisions that can be characterized as good or evil. Therefore, despite his intentions, man is neither good nor evil, but will make virtuous or malicious decisions based on his own personal experiences and emotions. In A Separate Peace by John Knowles, Gene contributes to the trend of men being led by their emotions. Gene is a teenage boy attending high school at Devon.

Read More
561 Words | 3 Pages

Danny’s lack of parental attention and guidance left him to resort to a life of crime. His father's absence left his mother to raise the two boys alone, in which she did a terrible job. Often leaving the boys alone for days at a time while she is out drinking and partying. This left the boys with no choice but to steal for their livelihood. All of the petty crimes they committed eventually led to the more serious crimes such as drug related offences, weapon offences and

Read More
476 Words | 2 Pages

“I [Reuven] saw Danny all the time in school, but the silence between us continued. We had begun to communicate with our eyes, with nods of our heads, with gestures of our hands. But we did not speak to each other.” (Pages 255-256) Reuven and Danny were not allowed to speak to each other, so they communicated without speaking. They kept their friendship alive even though Danny’s father had tried to kill it.

Read More
649 Words | 3 Pages

Danny carries a lot in his mind, and not much people can comprehend him until being friend with Reuven, but there is only Reuven understands him. “He said, and he had no one else to talk to bout it except me”

Read More
736 Words | 3 Pages

After hitting Reuven in the eye with a baseball, sending him to the hospital, Danny felt guilty for his actions. He went to ask for forgiveness, however Reuven completely rebuffed both Danny and his apology (62). But Danny showed his persistence, and went back to the hospital for a second attempt, succeeding in apologizing and making a new friend. Danny also displayed his determination while trying to read Freud. He quickly became exasperated at his lack of progress with the book, and his annoyance leaked into his everyday life.

Read More
655 Words | 3 Pages

Reb Saunders figures out as Danny grew up that he had very bright mind and desires more than the study of Hasidism. Reb Saunders was very considering when Danny told him he didn’t want to become the next tzaddik, because he already knew; and so he then passed it down to his next son, Levi

Read More
1044 Words | 5 Pages

Danny’s pain and bewilderment and its transition into a sad acceptance of his reality were toppled by the introduction of Reuven into his life and his silent rebellion through book reading. Through secular books banned by his father, Danny learnt of the secular version of freedom, where everyone can make all the decisions influencing them. He was no longer willing to accept silence as part of his father’s plan for the greater good. Instead, Danny viewed silence as a wall opposing his freedom. The realisation of what silence kept him from is made clear in his conversations with Reuven, “‘Had I ever sat in a bus with my father for hours and not exchanged a single word of conversation…I didn't know how really lucky I was,’ he added, a little bitterly.”

Read More
654 Words | 3 Pages

Coping with Crisis According to Freudian psychoanalysis, humans, as a whole, have three main parts to their psychological identity. These parts are the Id, which desires judgement and decisions based on primitive inclinations, the SuperEgo, which desires judgement and decisions based on morals and ethics, and lastly the Ego which tries to balance power between the Id and SuperEgo. In “Macbeth”, the famous seventeenth century play by Shakespeare, each character is crafted to cope with crises differently; some are healthier than others. Two of the most common ways of coping are to fight or flight.

Read More
950 Words | 4 Pages

Dreams come and we fight to achieve them. Everything around gets in the way and can sometimes destroy them. It's like a mouse and rat trap, the mouse is chasing the scent of the cheese that's on rat trap, once the rat find the cheese and goes to eat it the rat trap closes on him and bam the rat can never reach the pleasure of eating the cheese. The American Dream is what gives people hope and a dream that can be destroyed. Being careless can destroy the American dream, the short story “The necklace” by Guy de maupassant puts the main character in a not so responsible position that leads to her American Dream being destroyed.

Read More

More about Dangerous Decisions In Chaim Potok's The Chosen

Related Topics

Open Document