Symbolism In The Chosen

If The Flies Are Gone, What Will Feed The Spiders? Symbolism is a huge part of our everyday lives. Symbolism is defined as “a person, place, thing or event that is used to represent something else.” It adds perspective to what points are like, good or bad, and how they relate to the ordinary, like how the sun brings light to people's lives and the night brings darkness. It is meant to relate two completely different ideas. Metephores are a very common form of symbolism. In The Chosen by Chaim Potok, Reuven and Danny’s lives are symbolically represented by many passages but specifically chapter 9. Danny is symbolically represented as a fly. He is a hasidic jew and is the son of the local Tzaddik, Reb Saunders. He is supposed to become the Tzaddik when he is older because he is the

He is a hasid and Danny’s father. He doesn't talk to Danny at all, but for a reason. He is a very religious man and believed “words are cruel, words play tricks, they distort what is in the heart, they conceal the heart, the heart speaks through silence” (Potok, 265.) Although spiders are usually portrayed as someone cruel and evil, Ren Saunders was the opposite of that. To an outsider who doesn’t know their families ways, Reb would have seemed like a terrible father, but Danny, he understood. He knew how his father felt about silence an felt his love through the silence. Reuven released the fly after he saw it, but didn't think of how the spider was going to survive. “The spider tumbled from the broken web, hung by a single strand a few inches above the floor, ten swiftly climbed the strand, scrambled across the top front rail of the porch and disappeared” (Potok, 165). Reuven was helping the fly out, but if all the flies were gone, who was going to feed the spiders? After Reb let Danny follow his path and leave hasidism, all he had left was his religion, but that is not enough for him to thrive. Now the spider has to wait for another fly to come