Analysis of friendship in The Chosen - Stick Fate into the Bin

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Stick Fate into A Bin

In the beginning, God stuck his hands into two separate hats and pulled out two names. He announced, “I hereby pronounce Danny Saunders and Reuven Malter as friends from this day forward, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, so long as they both shall live.” Does that scene belong in The Chosen? No, it does not. In The Chosen by Chaim Potok, friends are selected deliberately with ulterior motives in mind. They are not chosen by fate, the Talmud, or even baseballs in the eye, no matter how convincing those sound.

        Friendships are mutual. Generally speaking, there are no friendships that consist of only one person; therefore, for a friendship to exist, there must be a joint agreement between two people to be friends. Having established that fact, a problem now exists: How exactly do two different people consent to be friends?

        Danny and Reuven met through chance (a baseball in the eye). However, that does not speak for anything by itself – the crucial factor that kick-started the friendship was Danny’s persistence in talking to Reuven, even after Reuven had chased him out of the hospital room. Danny’s initial motive: He is able to talk freely to Reuven. In short, Danny seeks Reuven out to dump his emotional baggage onto him.

This is most exemplified when Danny states that he has never “said that to anyone before.” (59). Danny is unconstraint with Reuven because Reuven is not connected to the Hasidic community; Reuven is, essentially, a safe outlet spot. For instance, Danny tells Reuven about his distaste for being a rabbi within their second meeting; however, he does not tell his own father that thought until many years later.

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Certainly part of the reason Danny seeks Reuven out is respect too. He respected Reuven for being a good baseball player as well as perhaps one of the few, if not only, person to actually stop his ball. Danny could have already sensed some of Reuven’s better qualities, such as his determination and skill over others (at least in baseball), and had subconsciously marked Reuven as ‘worthy to befriend’.

Later on in the story, the readers see Danny approaching Reuven for help in various areas, such as Mathematics, and support for his rebellion against his father. A most notable ...

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