Summary Of Chaim Potok's The Chosen

In Chaim Potok’s novel, The Chosen, a reader is shown three significant events that affect the friendship of Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter. The first event that affects Danny and Reuven’s relationship is the conversation that Danny and Reuven have in the hospital after the baseball game in chapter one. The second event is when Reb Saunders places a communication ban between Reuven and Danny. The third event is when Danny, Reuven, and Reb Saunders meet to discuss Danny’s future. The first significant event in Danny and Reuven’s friendship is when Danny and Reuven first meet and decide to be friends. When Danny and Reuven first meet, Danny is rude to Reuven and tells Reuven with no expression, “We’re going to kill you apikorsim this afternoon” …show more content…
During the ban, Reuven and Danny are not allowed to interact with each other and experience silence between them. The ban between Danny and Reuven lasts two years and in the two years of silence, both have experiences that influence who they become. The negative effect that the ban has on Danny and Reuven’s friendship is that both boys suffer emotional instability and experience loss. The ban has a large effect on Reuven in particular, with Reuven’s grades beginning to drop and with him feeling times of desperation: “It was an ugly time and it began to affect my schoolwork” (234). Though the readers do not get a commentary on how Danny is feeling during the ban, Reuven describes Danny saying, “He seemed to be losing weight, and I noticed he was wearing different eyeglasses” (234). The readers learn that Danny has glasses due to stress, indicating that the ban has also been mentally affecting Danny. The positive effect that the ban has on Reuven and Danny’s friendship is that Reuven experiences the same silence that Danny experiences from Reb Saunders. Reuven and Danny’s silence allows Reuven to have a better understanding of the silence between Reb Saunders and Danny later in the