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Definition of Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved directly or indirectly, by making... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the story. Foreshadowing can be achieved... read full definition
Foreshadowing is a literary device in which authors hint at plot developments that don't actually occur until later in the... read full definition
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—Library Mentor:
In Chapter 4, Danny reveals to Reuven that he spends a large amount of time at the local library reading “whatever I can get my hands on.” Danny is passionate about topics beyond what he can learn from the Jewish Talmud, the only material that his immediate family encourages him to study. In a moment of foreshadowing, Danny tells Reuven that a man at the library provides him with title suggestions, but he is unaware of the man’s true identity:
But I only read what the librarian says is worthwhile. I met a man there, and he keeps suggesting books for me to read. That librarian is funny. She’s a nice person, but she keeps staring at me all the time. She’s probably wondering what a person like me is doing reading all those books.
This passage foreshadows Reuven’s realization that his father and Danny Saunders know each other. The man to whom Danny refers is Reuven’s father, a discovery Reuven makes later in the chapter:
I suddenly realized that it was my father who all along had been suggesting books for Danny to read. My father was the man Danny had been meeting in the library! “But you never told me!” I said loudly.
Danny foreshadows Reuven’s realization with his early statement about “a man there” in the library. These passages additionally speak to religious differences, for Danny is aware that non-Hasidic people may find it curious that he seeks non-religious reading materials. However, Mr. Malter looks beyond this stereotype and provides Danny with recommendations for historical or psychological texts. Ultimately, Danny has a thirst for worldly knowledge and does not allow his own father’s conservative parenting to prevent him from educating himself in topics beyond the religious.
Related Themes:
Chapter 9
Explanation and Analysis—Caught in a Web:
In the end of Chapter 9, Reuven learns that Billy—a former floormate in Reuven’s hospital ward—undergoes a tragically unsuccessful medical operation. Reuven wonders which exact powers in the universe are to blame for his random good luck and Billy’s random bad luck. As Reuven ponders this confusing randomness on his porch in Brooklyn, he observes a fly trapped in a spider’s web. Potok utilizes this observation to foreshadow the tragic nature of seemingly random luck seen throughout World War II and the Holocaust:
I saw its black body arching wildly, and then it managed to get its wings free, and there was the buzzing sound again as the wings struggled to free the body to which they were attached. Then the wings were trapped again by the flimsy, almost invisible strands of the web, and the black legs kicked at the air [...]
Above, Potok uses the image of a fly trapped in a spider’s web to figuratively illustrate and foreshadow the senseless violence at the core of the Holocaust. As Reuven matures and discovers more about the world around him, he realizes that evil exists in society, most of which he has no control over. Throughout the historical timeline in The Chosen, the world’s Jewish population becomes metaphorically trapped in a global web of antisemitism and genocidal violence. Although Nazi Germany plans and executes this violence at a highly systematic level, any victim’s chance of survival can also seem highly random, due to factors such as luck, chance, or privilege.
Although Reuven ponders fortune due to his personal health rather than the Holocaust at large, Potok’s illustration of the trapped fly aids Reuven in discovering this tragic reality—a tragic reality replicated on a massive and global scale during the Holocaust.
Related Themes:
