"To live is to suffer," is a very famous quote that is applicable in both John Grisham's A Painted House and Chaim Potok's The Chosen. In each novel, the main character experiences suffering, that leads to the maturity of each of them by the conclusion of the stories. Potok uses Reuven Malter as the victim of suffering in his story while Grisham uses Luke Chandler. Each character has a different background and lives in a different environment; both feel pain and suffering throughout their lives, not just personally, but also that of others. On one hand, Reuven grows up in a Jewish family during World War II. He lives in a much more urban town than Luke. Reuven lives with his father and a maid, since his mother died when he was very young. Many of the experiences that Reuven has he shares with his best friend Danny, a Hasidic Jew. On the other hand, there is Luke. Luke grows up on a farm in rural Arkansas with extended family, which includes his mother, father, and both grandparents. He is only seven years old but has many responsibilities and chores to do. While the characters may come from differing backgrounds, each increases his maturity level through the suffering they endure. .
Potok begins his novel with a baseball game that Reuven is playing in against a school of Hasidic Jews. Reuven pitches against his soon-to-be best friend Danny Saunders, and is struck in the eye with a line drive propelled from Danny's bat. Reuven is taken to the hospital where he has surgery to remove a shard of glass from his eye that was driven in by the devastating blow to his face. It was this incident that made Reuven appreciate his ability to see much more than he had previously. The glass in his eye could have caused him to become blind which scared Reuven. This is evidenced by his saying, "I tried to imagine what life would be like if I had only one good eye, but I couldn't. I had just never thought about my eyes before.