Annie Dillard The Chase Essay

During his 1950 Nobel Prize Banquet Speech, William Faulkner expresses his concept of the “writer’s duty,” saying it is “his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart.” In her essay, “The Chase,” Annie Dillard illustrates this concept by expressing her enthusiasm for life through the perspective of her younger self. She narrates her experience being chased by a man after she and her friends throw snowballs at his car. When she is eventually caught, Dillard is upset that it is over, as it was the ultimate test of the skills she had acquired in football. Dillard accomplishes the “writer’s duty” because she lifts our hearts with a story that is meaningful, purposeful, and effective. Dillard begins her story with a description of the times

During the chase, Dillard provides a vivid description of her surroundings and the emotions she’s feeling, causing the audience to feel as if they’re actually there. For example, she reports being “chased silently over picket fences, through hedges, between houses, around garbage cans, and across streets” as the cold air “[tears] [her] throat” (106). Consequently, the audience is anxious to continue reading to learn whether or not the man catches them. Like Dillard, the reader is disappointed in the man’s mild response, hoping for something that would have “prolong[ed] the drama of the chase” (107) or even surpass it. Dillard fulfills William Faulkner’s “writer’s duty” by lifting our hearts with a meaningful, purposeful, and effective story. As we get older, we tend to hold ourselves back from enjoying the exciting things in life, allowing our busy lives to get in the way. While reading Dillard’s story, we inevitably think about our own childhood, and the “chases” we wanted to last forever. Perhaps, by telling the story from the viewpoint of her younger self, Dillard hopes to inspire us to “fling” ourselves wholeheartedly into the chases of our own, just like we did when we were