Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews February 7, 2023 January 31, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
I stood in that room for a long time, watching the sunlight and listening to the sounds on the street outside. I stood there, tasting the room and the sunlight and the sounds, and thinking of the long hospital ward. . . . I wondered if little Mickey had ever seen sunlight come though the windows of a front room apartment. . . . Somehow everything had changed. I had spent five days in a hospital and the world around seemed sharpened now and pulsing with life.
This passage occurs in Chapter 5, after Reuven has returned home from the hospital. His eye accident and brush with blindness taught him about the fragility of his senses. In this passage, Reuven shows he has developed a deep appreciation for the gift of perception as he describes “watching,” “listening to,” and “tasting” the world around him.
Not only has Reuven’s accident heightened his physical awareness of the world around him; it has also heightened his perception of the world’s suffering and complexity. In the hospital, he encountered people in painful and cruel situations. Displaying a new sense of empathy and compassion, Reuven worries about Mickey, the boy who has been in the hospital his whole life. Reuven’s eyes have been opened to the injustice and suffering in the world. As a result, Reuven appreciates the quality of his own circumstances—of his sunny apartment—which are superior to those of the dingy hospital ward. Throughout the novel, Potok portrays the development of compassion for the suffering of others as a crucial element of maturity.
Reuven also first meets Danny when Danny visits him in the hospital, and Reuven’s conversations with Danny are equally important to Reuven’s heightened awareness of the world. Danny contributes to Reuven’s improved sense of perception by defying all of Reuven’s preconceived assumptions about Hasidic Judaism. Reuven’s focus on his physical senses in this passage also emphasizes the importance of looking deeper than a first glance. In order to show how Reuven’s way of seeing others has changed, Potok stresses the way Reuven’s apartment, something he has known all his life, seems a new place. In this passage, Reuven reveals the after-effects of his hospital experience: his perception, on all levels, has been broadened and deepened by his accident, by the suffering he witnesses, and by his interaction with Danny Saunders.
Please wait while we process your payment