Category: The Chosen

In The Chosen, the setting of each scene contributes to our understanding of the book’s central themes. The baseball field reveals the theme of conflict between two opposing forces, the hospital brings about different perceptions of the world, the library represents the characters’ expanding minds, and so on. The combination of settings and the sub-themes…

In Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, a quote by psychologist Karl Menninger appears in the dedication. It goes, “When a trout rising to a fly gets hooked and finds himself unable to swim about freely, he begins a fight which results in struggles and splashes and sometimes an escape… It is hard for a free fish…

These words from the headstone of a Jewish holocaust victim perfectly define Chaim Potok’s use of light as a symbol of knowledge and truth in a world of tradition. Potok uses Reuven’s observations of light to give the reader clues of Danny’s awakenings to the truth and knowledge of the outside world in The Chosen.…