Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Edward A. Abramson

SOURCE: "The Chosen," in Chaim Potok, Twayne Publishers, 1986, pp. 7-36.

In the following excerpt, Abramson provides an overview of the major themes, characters, and narrative presentation in The Chosen.

Jewish and Non-jewish Worlds

The Chosen is set largely within a Jewish world, the characters approaching and having to cope with their problems within almost self-contained Jewish communities. The novel opens with a dramatic baseball game between a fanatical Hasidic sect of Ultra-Orthodox Jews and a group of Orthodox Jews who follow the commandments but not the particular idiosyncracies of the Hasids. It is here that we meet Danny Saunders, the son of the leader of the Hasidic sect and heir apparent to his father's post. Because of what we later learn to be pressure from his father not to engage in secular pursuits at all, Danny feels that his team must win, thus proving that they can beat "lesser" Jews at their own...
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