The book The Chosen by Chaim Potok presents a main theme of silence. People can convey words that hurt, or that indicate happiness-but silence says a mass more. In a situation where one goes without words, they could demonstrate truly any emotion that they feel. When a person is hurt, they may go without speaking by reason of there being nothing left to say, or it hurts too much to speak about it. At the same time, silence could also present love. For example, just simply looking at a person a certain way, can capture their attention to the deep meaning of what one wants to say. In other words, silence could display pain, but also love, and sound louder than words while doing so.

Believe it or not, you can sense more pain through silence than anything else. Almost as if silence speaks to a person’s heart, as opposed to their ears. It comes as a rush of emotions that are strong, almost as if heard. “You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it. … It doesn't always talk. Sometimes-sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it. It hurts to listen to it then, but you have to.” To emphasize, a person’s heart can …show more content…
Danny and Reuven both loved and cherished each other and the good times they had, and Reuven wanted nothing more than for Danny to speak to him. “And then I was crying too, crying with Danny, silently, for his pain and for the years of his suffering, knowing that I loved him, and not knowing whether I hated or loved the long, anguished years of his life.” For one thing, all Reuven wanted was to know whether Danny felt the same way, but was possibly just as scared as him to simply speak up. They would pass each other in the halls and make eye contact, even sometimes rubbing against each other while passing by. Each time this occurred Reuven would break down even more on the inside, and wished nothing more than for someone to just hear him crying