It was the way that characters change in a text that makes it worth reading.
It was the way that characters change in a text that makes it worth reading, particularly when the change was driven by one of the major themes of the text. The Chosen, a novel by Chaim Potok, illustrated this by showing the change in Danny’s life through how he interacted with the theme of silence. Chaim Potok showed through the changes in Danny that the way we relate to an aspect of our lives affects our future. Through Danny’s life this essay will examine how as his view of silence changes his character does also, from his reluctantly dutiful acquiescence to his fate though his years of silent rebellion to his final understanding of what silence was for him and
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Danny was brought up in silence from a young age, and while he at first was “bewildered and frightened” by the abrupt change in his relationship with his father. As he grew though, he adapted to the silence and accepted it as part of his life although he appears to regret the missing closeness with his father. In an attempt to rationalise his father's silence Danny explains to Reuven, “He really worries about his people… so much he doesn’t have time to talk to me.” Danny explained away his father’s silence and continually attempted to accept this life of silence as the Hasidic teaching said he should. “I’m the inheritor of the dynasty… because one day the son will be the father.” Danny was willing to bear the life of silence for the sake of his father and his community, and to become the next Rebbe as he culture demands. The forced ambivalence Danny feels towards silence had shaped the early formative years of his life before his meeting with Reuven. An undercurrent of the baseball game was Danny’s build up of regret being released through his declaration to “...kill the apikorsim” of the opposition. The complex ways Danny’s character was shaped through silence engages the readers as they want to know more about this fascinating