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Danny Saunders In The Chosen

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“I don’t ever want to be trapped the way he’s trapped. I want to be able to breathe, to think what I want to think, to say the things I want to say.” Danny Saunders, a main character from the book The Chosen by Chaim Potok, craved freedom to live his life the way he desired. As the son on Reb Saunders, a Jewish Rabbi, tradition and order dominated Danny’s life. However, Danny never allowed this to stop him. Three attributes that best describe Danny are: confident, cautious, and caring. Confidence almost never fell short for Danny. Although family tradition already left Danny in line to become a Rabbi when his father died, Danny convinced himself that reading Freud provided a better use of time. “He couldn’t stop reading him, he said, because it has become increasingly obvious to him that Freud had possessed an almost uncanny insight into the nature of man.” Sometimes Freud would confuse Danny but, he always knew that there was truth behind it. Additionally, when Danny’s father found out about his son’s misbehavior, Danny did not let that stop him. He continued to read the Freud against his fathers will. …show more content…

One day Reuven and Reb Saunders started a big argument. The argument happened over dinner regarding the Messiah. Reb grew extremely angry resulting in Reuven’s fright. After the argument, Danny cautioned Reuven, “… to think ten thousand times the next time I wanted to mention anything like that again to his father. His father was fine, he said, until he was confronted by any idea that he felt came from the contaminated world.” Although Danny did not always agree with his father’s teachings, he made sure that Reuven never became his father’s

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He is taught to be exactly like his father when he becomes an adult and he is extremely observant. I was raised like Reuven and completely agree with his father’s approach of raising Reuven. I completely disagree with Reb Saunders way of raising Danny because it was essentially a “radical” way of

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Both ultimately share insight with both Danny and Reuven including the importance of their friendship.

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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

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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.

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His actions towards Danny and Reb Saunders highlight his forgiving-nature. While the normal person would react with hatred, Reuven acted with understanding and grace. Likewise, many people admired Reuven for his intelligence. He worked hard by reading to acquire knowledge. Equally, Reuven’s determination drove him to success.

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He’s gonna track down his dad and spend some quality time with him. So they can get to know each other again”(de la Peña 5). Danny is beginning to dispute his father's absence because he wants him back in his life. Danny needs access to his father so that he may convey all of life's lessons and let him feel more of his love. Danny may find it difficult to accept this situation because he loved his father's company and became connected to him while still in his life.

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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

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Reuvan, when Danny is talking about his brother being sick, says “I got the impression that he loved his brother very much.” (141) His brother is

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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.

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Reb Saunders is not understood by many because of the way in which he raises his son, Danny. Danny grew up in complete silence from his father. Reb Saunders would only speak to his son about the Hasidic religion. For Danny’s childhood and much of his young adult life, he had no one to turn to for advice on life. This style of parenting was not understood by Mr.Malter, who viewed it as a cruel way to raise a child.

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Danny strategically also asks Reuven to help him in math, to which he agrees. Reuven starts coaching him in math at lunch every day and begins to learn a lot about psychology through him. This shows that Reuven is a good friend and a good person. His coaching Danny every day also shows how committed he is to things. This is a key feature of Reuven’s personality and can be seen multiple times in the book At the beginning of Chapter 14, on page 224, Reuven talks about how he and Danny attended the same classes, ate in the same lunch room, rode in the same trolley car, and didn’t say a single word to each other.

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He again shows another difference between Danny and himself by pointing out that they attend different schools because each sect had a specific school they went to. By also mentioning that his school was “looked down upon” by other Jewish parochial schools because it offered more “English subjects” and taught Jewish subjects in “Hebrew”, Reuven hints that his particular sect is substantially more relaxed and open to change than other Hasidic sects like Danny’s. By listing all of the differences between Danny and Reuven, Potok shows that before the two boys ever meet they will have already formed an opinion about the other. Before knowing of Danny’s existence, Reuven draws the conclusion that his Hasidic sect is traditional and arrogant simply because practice their religion

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When Reuven first meets Danny’s father Danny’s marvelous intellect is displayed when he and his father go into a game of sorts in front over everyone at the dinner. In this game, his father will say, something intentionally wrong about a religious text and Danny is to correct him from memory, out of the two times Danny and his father are shown to play this game Danny only messed up once. The sheer fact that he has only been shown to have messed up once is not the only way that shows his brilliance, later on, he says to Reuven “ I don’t mind it. I even enjoy it a little” (143). After reading that there is no argument for the lack of Danny’s brilliance.

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Reuven thought to himself, ”silence was ugly, it was black, it leered, it was cancerous, it was death. I hated it, and I hated Reb Saunders for forcing it upon me and his son. ”(Potok 235) Reb Saunders forbid Danny to talk to Reuven which makes the friendship with the boys difficult. Reb Saunders is also the problem why the boys are having a hard time being friends.

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Obviously, Danny thinks about not following in his father's footsteps frequently. If he performed that thought the results could be intense, however he shows independence by not remaining unafraid to do the right

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