In Literature and Language, we are told that literary characterization is accomplished in three ways: "The reader gets to know a character through his words and his actions,... and through what other characters say about him... (p.44)" In most cases, there is a correlation between the amount of data available and the liveliness manifested in each character; in other words, the more information we get about a character, the better we know him. Just look at any of the well-known characters in canonical literature to understand their meaning: Shakespeare's Hamlet, for example -. undoubtedly the most striking of all the characters How do we know Hamlet so well? Because his creator endowed him with ample action (the play totals 3,880 lines), abundant verbiage (the vast majority of them). 3,880 lines are spoken by Hamlet himself) and of ample description (the majority of lines not spoken by Hamlet are mentioned). him). Therefore, drawing conclusions about Hamlet, the character, becomes as easy as catching a fish in an aquarium: just take a net and scoop it up. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay How, then, can a reader reconcile a work of literature when the characterization is woefully lacking in scope and quantity? When a character does little, says even less, and is so impressed by his peers that they hardly speak of him, it is difficult to draw conclusions, and the reader who does so hastily may well draw a conclusion which is not the correct one. wrong. However, to leave such a work without drawing any conclusion is to say either that the author has failed in his task of characterization, or that we have failed in our attempts to understand him. Either way, reading the work is rendered useless. This is the precarious dilemma we face when reading Chaim Potok's novel, The Chosen. Although not the main character in Potok's work, Reb Saunders is the driving force of the novel: the novel's main conflicts depend on the main characters' fear of him, and he forces the climax; but as a character, Reb Saunders remains somewhat shrouded. Simply enjoying Potok's story does not require examining Danny's mysterious father, but if any intellectual growth can be derived from this experience, it will surely come through a deeper understanding of the imposing tzaddik . Reb Saunders is so many things, but for most of the novel his one defining characteristic is that he is silent. And for this reason – because Potok practically deprives us of one of the only three tools by which we could “know” Reb Saunders – we only know him through the perceptions of the other characters in the novel. However, if we interpret their observations about him ("...his mad silences and outbursts [p.244]") literally, our opinions of Reb Saunders are unlikely to be favorable. But it seems unlikely that the author's intention is for the reader to hate the spiritual center of his novel. Like Reb Saunders with Danny, like David Malter with his son Rueven, Chaim Potok trusts his reader – he hopes his reader, like Danny, can “listen to the silence and learn from it.” (p. 249) » But in case we, like Reuven, are reluctant to do so, Potok allows Reb Saunders to break his mysterious silence in the final pages of the novel. The result is twofold: first, the novel ends with a sweet conclusion andsatisfactory; but more importantly, the reader is now able to draw a valid conclusion about Reb Saunders, the character. And ironically, this conclusion must be favorable. In our attempt to know Reb Saunders, we are fortunate in at least one respect - Potok provides us with a vivid physical description of the tzaddik: He was a tall man... his face... looked carved in stone, the nose sharp and pointed, the hollow cheekbones, the full lips, the forehead like marble engraved with lines, the deep eye sockets, the eyebrows thick with black hair... their eyes are dark, with points of white light playing in them as they do in black stones in the sun... (p.120) We also hear Reb Saunders' thunderous voice as he speaks to his congregation and we observe him as he tests his son (and Reuven) when arguing the Talmud. But beyond that, we have very little to do. For much of the novel, the information we gather about Reb Saunders is mostly gossip; we become dependent on the impressions of Reuven and his father. Unfortunately for Reb Saunders, these impressions are not favorable; and whatever negative ideas we have already developed about the rabbi as a strong leader and an intelligent man, but nevertheless a distant, even cruel father, are confirmed and reinforced by the Maltesers. While Reuven's father vaguely acknowledges that he cannot judge what he does. I don't quite understand, and he doesn't know what it's like to raise a tzaddik, his condemnation of Reb Saunders' methods is considerably less vague, and we hear his criticism clearly. "There are other ways than the way of Reb Saunders," David Malter tells his son, and although he constantly feigns tolerance, he spares no opportunity to make his opinion on Hasidism known. "I don't like his Hasidism very much," David said to Reuven, "...It's a shame that (Reb Saunders) only deals with the Talmud. If he wasn't a tzadik, he could bring a great contribution to the world” (p. 141). In fact, David Malter even undermines aspects of Reb Saunders that we might find admirable, were it not for Malter's intrusive opinion. One might admire Reb Saunders' capacity for suffering - his willingness to symbolically shoulder the sad burdens of his family, his flock and the six million Jews recently massacred in Nazi Europe. But through his son, Reuven's father discourages such sympathy from the reader: “Hasidim! Malter mutters. “Why must they feel that the burden of the world rests solely on their shoulders?” (p. 252), a statement he makes ironically even as he also suffers for his people in a secular way, fighting for the establishment of Israel. Darker still, Reuven, the strongest link between reader and text, shares his father's views on Reb Saunders and feels an even more passionate hatred for Danny's father as the debate over Zionism painfully tears the community apart. Jewish in two. "He's... a fanatic!" (p. 219) shouts Reuven. And of Reb Saunders' code of silence, Reuven says: "I hated silence...and I thought it was unimaginable that Danny and his father never really spoke to each other. The silence was ugly, it was black, it leered, it was cancerous, it was death. I hated it, and I hated Reb Saunders for imposing it on me and his son” (pp. 220-221). We see the richness that open communication with his father adds to Reuven's life and, in contrast, we feel the misery created by the lack of contact in Danny's life. Our verdict is simple and justifiable: Danny is tortured, and it's Reb Saunders' fault. His methods arefalse. He's a bad father. But is this verdict justifiable? Certainly not before examining the available data on Reb Saunders' own son. Brevity may tempt us to neglect such inquiry, in favor of the easier route: dismissing Danny as no more capable than we are of evaluating his own father; after all, he is confronted with the same “silence” as the reader. But an examination of Danny's view of his own father is vital and provides the data needed to challenge our premature "guilty" verdict. We must remember that Danny is able to perceive what we cannot perceive. He can't explain it completely, but he says to his friend: "You can listen to silence, Reuven... you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension of its own. He speaks to me." Sometimes. I feel alive in it. He speaks and I hear him" (p. 249). We see that Danny is not completely deprived of his father's voice - his father speaks to him both through Reuven and with silence. It is Danny who suffers, not us, and it is Danny who is in a position to judge, not us Yet, as we condemn Reb Saunders, Danny trusts him: You want to know how I feel about my father? I don't know what he's trying to do to me with this strange silence he's established between us, but I admire him. I think he's a great man. I respect him and trust him completely. , that's why I think I can live with his silence I don't know why I trust him, but I do... (p. 191) If Danny doesn't condemn his father, how can we? Especially since exploring the text in hindsight shows that Danny's trust is not unfounded The simplest way to justify Danny's trust in his father is to examine the results: Danny is a being. splendid human; he is brilliant, ambitious, thoughtful, sensitive, caring and compassionate. But beyond our vision of the finished product that Danny Saunders becomes, we also see that despite the silence, there is a clearly perceptible relationship between Danny and his father. Danny enjoys certain aspects of his upbringing. He enjoys the loving attention he receives from his father's flock, he deeply appreciates and respects his father's intellectual abilities, and he positively delights in Talmudic disputes, both public and private, rarely engaging his father in a battle without a broad, caricatured smile spread everywhere. his face. But Danny is not solely responsible for “extracting” these pleasures. We are compelled to recognize Reb Saunders, and we cannot ignore the "little things" he does well, such as his joy at losing Talmudic arguments to his son, his face "shining with fierce pride, and his head nodding.” wildly” (p. 156). Nor can we ignore the deep faith he displays in his son by even allowing him to make contact with Reuven and David Malter in the first place, only asking Reuven: "Reuven, you and your father will have a good influence on my son, isn't it? (p.159) Yet despite considering Danny's point of view, despite the obvious good relationship between him and his father, even though he knows that Reb Saunders must raise his son while at the same time serving as a messiah virtual to his congregation, we resist. absolve his apparent negligence. We realize that Reb Saunders must have the answers – he must have the answers for the Talmud, the answers for the Torah, the answers for his congregation, for his people, for the horrible past, for the uncertain future. We understand its burden, but it is not enough; we want him to answer for his son. And in the end, he does. When Reuven finally listens, we.