The Chosen
Chaim Potok (1967)
“Two Brooklyn boys — one Hasidic, one Modern Orthodox — form a friendship across a religious divide, and discover that the most powerful kind of love sometimes looks like silence.”
Characters in The Chosen
by Chaim Potok · 1967 · 4 characters analyzed
Cast: Reuven Malter, Danny Saunders, Reb Isaac Saunders, David Malter.
Character Analysis
Reuven is not the most brilliant character in the novel — Danny is. He is not the most spiritually powerful — Reb Saunders is. His role is to see. He is the lens (to use David Malter's metaphor) through which we observe a world that would otherwise be sealed. His steadiness is not blandness — it is a form of moral competence. He pays attention. He shows up. He stays.
Earnest, direct, scholarly but not performative. Speaks plainly about complex things. No affectation, no class performance.