In The Chosen by Chaim Potok, vision is a metaphor for perceptive growth. During Book One, Reuven is naïve, and he fails to see through the eyes of others. However, after he meets Danny, the two boys progress into Book Two with more empathetic and mature eyes. In Book Three, at the end of the novel, the two boys – now young men – have grown perceptively to see and understand the paradox of the significance and insignificance of their existences.
In Book One, Reuven has the perception of a young and innocent child; he is ignorant and unworldly. However, when he learns about his possible blindness in the second chapter, his perception begins to expand. “I couldn't imagine what it was like to know that no matter whether my eyes were opened or closed it made no difference, everything was still dark.” (53) Reuven's thoughts make an allusion to the Book of Genesis, which connects light to goodness and darkness to badness: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hove...
To begin with, Reuven shows great companion for other, even in his teenage years. He demonstrates throughout the book that he really cares for others and that he takes their burden upon himself. He shows how he actually suffers with others with their hardships and he never only thinks about himself. For example, when Reuven learns that his little friend Billy did not get his eye sight back, the book says, “I felt myself break out into cold sweat. The hand holding the phone began to tremble and I had to push the phone against my face to keep it steady.” (173) These two sentences completely show how Reuven really wanted Billy to get his eye sight back and when he learned
In The Chosen, Potok describes the Jewish culture during the period of World War I. Beginning with the affluence of Polish Jews before the war, Potok established a circle of relationships. In the book, there are three main relationships. The first one is father-son, between Danny and his father, Reb Saunders and between Reuven and his father, David Malter. The relationship between Reuven and Danny is the second main relationship in The Chosen. The third main relationship is Hasidism verses Zionism.
In the novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston describes the horizon as possibilities and opportunities. When the story starts out Janie’s perception of the horizon changes first from desire for love to the need of love, and ultimately the feeling of contentment towards love to show Janie maturing throughout the novel.
In The Chosen, Reuven is very easily influenced by the people around him as he goes through his adolescence. It is a time of learning and self-realization for him, and at this time, he turns to his father for guidance and wisdom. His father shows him the ways of understanding and compassion. He also prepares him for what lies ahead, whether his son chooses to be a rabbi or not. Through his father’s teachings, Reuven develops the personal traits essential for becoming a rabbi.
All through the entire book, Chaim Potok attempted various endeavor in order to express the emphasis on developing his central characters, Reuven Malter and Danny Saunders. One of the main themes Chaim Potok tried to express in The Chosen is that true friendship plays a vital role in maintaining the welfare of any friends. To backbone his idea, Chaim Potok demonstrated several scenarios when Reuven and Danny are in difficult situations and ultimately have to sort out solutions before the problems could corrupt their relationship. Reuven Malter, son of a Modern Orthodox teacher, is smart, athletic and has a particular nick for mathematics. However, Reuven's desire is to become a rabbi of his own sect for he feels that he could " be more useful to people as a rabbi ," ("The Chosen" 74) by doing things such as to " teach them, and help them when they're in trouble " ("The Chosen" 74) Danny Saunders, on the other hand, is the son of a Russian Hasidic rabbi leader, Reb Saunders.
Within Oliver Sacks, “To See and Not See”, the reader is introduced to Virgil, a blind man who gains the ability to see, but then decides to go back to being blind. Within this story Sacks considers Virgil fortunate due to him being able to go back to the life he once lived. This is contrasted by Dr. P, in “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat”, Sacks states that his condition is “tragic” (Sacks, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat (13) due to the fact that his life will be forever altered by his condition. This thought process can be contributed to the ideas that: it is difficult to link physical objects and conceptualized meanings without prior experience, the cultures surrounding both individuals are different, and how they will carry on with their lives.
Eliezer Wiesel loses his faith in god, family and humanity through the experiences he has from the Nazi concentration camp.
Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man tells of one man's realizations of the world. This man, the invisible man, comes to realize through experience what the world is really like. He realizes that there is illusion and there is reality, and reality is seen through light. The Invisible Man says, "Nothing, storm or flood, must get in the way of our need for light and ever more and brighter light. The truth is the light and light is the truth" (7). Ellison uses light as a symbol for this truth, or reality of the world, along with contrasts between dark/light and black/white to help show the invisible man's evolving understanding of the concept that the people of the world need to be shown their true ways. The invisible man becomes aware of the world's truth through time and only then is he able to fully understand the world in which he lives.
This theme has a profound effect on events, as there are two contrasting and opposing sides. There are the characters that see it as their duty to aid the people without vision for a short time. On the contrary there are people who choose to relocate so they can survive long-term. The latter option is the logical movement for people who consider, and are concerned about, the survival of humanity. There are conflicts, which are a result of the people with vision not conforming to the opposite cause, which has an impact on events. A reference in the text that reflects this is when Bill Masen witnesses this conflict near the University of London. He listens to Coker’s speech, the content argu...
In An Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Their Eyes were Watching God, Janie and the Narrator live very different lives and experience very unfortunate things while their story is being told. Luckily, some of these things create positive outcomes that is hard to predict in the beginning of each of their stories. Nevertheless, both of them have a rather positive outlook on their situation no matter what circumstances they are involved in. No matter the difference in gender, what they pass as, or their financial situation, they both have some of the same struggles that make their stories interesting. Even though their lives may be harder from other people, it gives them the opportunity to become stronger people once they start to either overcome
In her essay “Seeing”, Annie Dillard focuses on showing how different people have different perceptions. Dillard gives multiple examples to support her main idea, which is that preconceived and inherited notions influence our perceptions. Dillard discusses the different ways of seeing, how people with different backgrounds have different experiences with seeing, and many more. While Dillard’s idea about perceptions is definitely relevant and accurate, but are certainly not complete as there are multiple things that influence our perceptions.
Zora Neale Hurston was an American novelist, anthropologist, folklorist, and short story writer and is closely associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston grew up in one of America’s first all-black communities. Growing up in this unique community gave her a sense of independence, freedom and boldness that many African-Americans, especially females, did not have during this time. Growing up in that community distinguished her from other writers of her time, and it is clearly reflected in her work. Hurston wrote many short stories, plays, essays and four published novels. Of all of the works she published and accomplishments she had, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. This novel tells the story of Janie Crawford a young African-American girl growing up in
prove to be blind when it comes to the world they are in. By looking
Mr. Kenneth Muir, in his introduction to the play - which does not, by the way, interpret it simply from this point of view - aptly describes the cumulative effect of the imagery: "The contrast between light and darkness [suggested by the imagery] is part of a general antithesis between good and evil, devils and angels, evil and grace, hell and heaven . . . (67-68)
The Book of Genesis is a collection of stories telling the accounts of the beginning of the universe and some of the first humans that reside within it. In chapter one, the story of how there is an all-powerful God and how he created everything in existence is told and listed out. It is very methodical in its delivery and seems to get right to the point of what happened and seems to have a more ceremonial feel in the way that it is worded; it gives the feeling of something a teacher would state in a lesson. In the second and third books it is in more of a storytelling format than the first chapter and focuses more on where man falls into all of this and the story of how evil or sin was spread over the earth. In the beginning of the second chapter, it recounts how God