Brave Heart : Silent A Long Time

No one can truly understand sympathy until they have suffered. In his The Chosen, a postmodern novel, Chaim Potok surveys the meaning of compassion learned through suffering. Danny Saunders, a brilliant Hasidic Jew, lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn along with his friend, Reuven Malter, in the 1940s. With his photographic memory, Danny aspires to become a psychologist, but he knows that he will have to inherit his father’s position as the rabbi of their community. In addition to this, his father, Reb Saunders, will not speak to him about anything other than the holy book of Talmund. Danny is forced to keep his ideas and experiences to himself, leading to him suffering because of this silence. Chaim Potok’s The Chosen uses Danny’s gradual shift

"I smiled, --for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house."

He waited until the night’s 11th hour. By now the Princess rested in the highest tower of the castle, locked away from the dangerous world, yet so oblivious to the dangers that which fated the rest of her life. Silently the peasant journeyed outside, where he stopped at the wall of the tower where she lay. He watched her in the darkness from below, lifting his face to her, letting the light rest on his every surface of darkness. The night was cloudless. The winds wailed between the motionless oak trees as its thin branches clawed out, ever so slightly disturbing the leaves with its hostile screeches. Not the thick moss of the trees nor the damp leaves squirming in his toes could distract the peasant from so enticing a scent. All that encircled him was the sweetness of lavender and rosewood, filling his entire being as he sunk into the grass, like sand washed over by the water, with every breeze passing

This was my end. I would die here, out in some ocean in the middle of nowhere. Slowly, the water rose to my head. I told myself I had one last breath to take. I looked up to the heavens, or rather, the dark sky above me.

“Oh, baby. I’m so glad your home,” Miles whispered, his voice hitching mid sentence. “I missed you so much. I just can’t believe you’re really here. We never stopped looking, never,” he murmured against her

“Hey! We’re running now. Start moving.” I opened my weary eyes. In front of me was the dark face of the same woman who I talked to at dusk. Heeding her words, I rose and started moving to the exit of the barn, quietly evading the slumbering guard outside. I realized that she stayed behind for me and the rest were gone already. After we went over the fence, we started to run as fast as a tiger until we were out of breath and our limbs were sore. The weather was clear as day and the sun was right above me. Then, I heard the familiar sound of

“I always heard that when you die, there’s a bright light at the end of a tunnel. That and all your loved ones are there to meet you.”

He did not want to scare her away. His footfalls are audible in the silent night, reaching out to her, each step bringing them closer together. Their turmoil of emotions rivals a hurricane, fear, fury and rage but most of all love shines in her eyes. Pure adoration is reflected in his. One foot forward, step by step, the space between them ceased to exist. Prowling forward, pushing her backwards into the building and onto the elevator, he corners her. Unnerved, she stands still in disbelief, doubting that he is really here. Staring at his face, his chiseled jaw, the definition in his shoulders, it seemed that wherever he went he had been worked hard. A calloused hand comes up and brushes a strand of hair from her face.

My shuffled jog catches on the roots of a tree and I’m hurled through the air. Sharply landing in a small clearing, I see William sitting and drinking from his canteen in a innocent state of bliss. Does he realize we’re lost? No one will miss us, I don’t suspect father even knew we were coming. I get up and strenuously crawl over to him, my muscles tight and aching. Silently he hands me the bottle, and I gulp down the remnants of our water. Tired and hungry we sit for few minutes before continuing on. We don’t know where we’re going or factly where are; but, we can hear the clouds tumbling in and anywhere becomes better than

Her breath shown in the cold moist air of the lake side. She quickened her pace, dashing from one underbrush to the next, twigs and branches scratching at her face as if begging for her to take them away with her from this wretched land, her breathing became increasingly vigorous. Her limbs grew heavy as more and more mud started to cling to her boots as if also wanting to go with her and the distance she had to cover seemed to become more and more. She started to think she couldn’t go on anymore, except for one reason and one reason only. The warm infant wrapped in blankets and cloth started to become heavier and heavier in her arms as she felt her body starting to fail her. But she couldn’t stop she had to get her baby to safety. As the sound of dogs barking and the hooves of horses and the screams of soldiers yelling,” She went this way!” “No this way!” The ever growing thought of are they going to find me, did I do all this just to get

The great scene of grief, in which the wild infant bore a part had developed all her sympathies; and as her tears fell upon her father’s cheek, they were the pledge that she would grow up amid human

"Come," he said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible. Besides, there is Luchresi --"

“Why did I have to die like this?” he uttered, his mouth dry as a hay bale. “Why, gods?”

“That’s all you have to say? That it was good? It wasn’t hard to leave your family behind? To have us think you were dead. To leave me, blind, with a drunk and a father who hid from his family?”

“My dad died of cancer, and I guess I blamed myself for not being there enough. So, I decided getting away would fix everything, but even though I’m gone, everything reminds me of him.” She wipes a tear from her eyes and sniffles, “I’m sorry, but I should go home.”