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Summary Of Outside The Chase By Abigail Shaw

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The story that I choose to read for this weeks unit assignment is titled Outside The Chase and it is written by author Abigail Shaw. This is a story about a man named Aaron and of his desires and fears. Desire for love and fear of embracing it. Desire to live and fear of living too openly and joyous. A desire to avoid death and fear that death will not avoid him. I believe that Abigail Shaw presents to us a point of view of how traumatic childhood experiences can shape a persons life. She does this by informing us of two distinct incidents in Aaron’s childhood. The death of his father to illness and in losing all of his worldly possessions due to the fire which also took the life of his mother. After these tragedies Aaron resolved himself to …show more content…

She writes about Aaron’s fear of death coming back to torment him the very moment that he may cease moving and decide to settle down, to allow for true happiness. “He hit the road the day he turned eighteen, resolving never to stop, never to put himself in a situation that could shatter the way his childhood did. The only way to spite Death was to keep moving” (Shaw, 2012). In my opinion the author does a tremendous job of illustrating to the reader just how far Aaron goes in order to avoid death. From Aaron’s refusal to obtain anything that he cannot psychically carry with him (Shaw, 2012). To the way she describes Aaron’s behavior toward a woman named Megan that he meets and falls for (Shaw, …show more content…

The fact that Aaron has lived his life in such a rigid manner for the nine years since his mother’s death and the loss of his home shows the reader just how fearful he is of death and new commitments and how deep his desire to avoid death and loss truly run. “Death stirred at his shoulder, tickled his ear, reminded him it was watching, waiting, poised to poison anyone he opened his heart to. Aaron responded by switching continents for five nights. Don’t stop running” (Shaw, 2012). For a person to take such an extreme action as moving from continent to continent in such a short period of time simply to attempt to fool death shows us just how serious Aaron needs to take this fear of death and loss. Though I cannot recall ever reading a story such as this one that I have chosen to discuss, I would absolutely enjoy reading more like it and anything from Abigail Shaw. I would also recommend this story to any and all avid or occasional readers. I enjoy the attention to detail given to how Aaron goes about living this life of desire and fear. I also enjoy that by the end of this story it seems as if Aaron may finally be ready to accept some form of love and happiness into his life that has been hollow for far too

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