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Danny Saunders In The Chosen

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“I don’t ever want to be trapped the way he’s trapped. I want to be able to breathe, to think what I want to think, to say the things I want to say.” Danny Saunders, a main character from the book The Chosen by Chaim Potok, craved freedom to live his life the way he desired. As the son on Reb Saunders, a Jewish Rabbi, tradition and order dominated Danny’s life. However, Danny never allowed this to stop him. Three attributes that best describe Danny are: confident, cautious, and caring. Confidence almost never fell short for Danny. Although family tradition already left Danny in line to become a Rabbi when his father died, Danny convinced himself that reading Freud provided a better use of time. “He couldn’t stop reading him, he said, because it has become increasingly obvious to him that Freud had possessed an almost uncanny insight into the nature of man.” Sometimes Freud would confuse Danny but, he always knew that there was truth behind it. Additionally, when Danny’s father found out about his son’s misbehavior, Danny did not let that stop him. He continued to read the Freud against his fathers will. …show more content…

One day Reuven and Reb Saunders started a big argument. The argument happened over dinner regarding the Messiah. Reb grew extremely angry resulting in Reuven’s fright. After the argument, Danny cautioned Reuven, “… to think ten thousand times the next time I wanted to mention anything like that again to his father. His father was fine, he said, until he was confronted by any idea that he felt came from the contaminated world.” Although Danny did not always agree with his father’s teachings, he made sure that Reuven never became his father’s

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