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What Is The Purpose Of The Chase By Annie Dillard

1482 Words6 Pages

In “The Chase” from the memoir An American Childhood, Annie Dillard illustrates an incident from her childhood that stayed with her throughout her life. She describes a time when she was out playing with her friends and got caught up in a chase, in which she had the time of her life. She remembers this incident because it had a lasting impression on her life. The exhilaration of the chase was none like any feeling she’s had before or ever had again. The purpose of this story is for Annie to relive this thrill. The thrill that gave a rush that was only reached when giving your all in football. The narrative begins with Annie describing herself at a young age. She sets the scene for the impending chase by first describing the “fine sport” of …show more content…

All throughout the text, Annie uses very descriptive details to give us as clear of an image as possible of the events of this day. She uses many details throughout the chase, paragraphs 10-14. Along with the syntax she uses, the details draw out the time during the chase.“He chased Mikey and me around the yellow house and up a backyard path...and across the grocery store’s delivery driveway” This sentence has a lot of details about the neighborhood. Annie was really paying attention to her environment although she was frantically running about. This further develops the purpose of this story. A person typically wouldn’t remember an event that happened so long ago in so much detail, unless it had a major affect on their life. All the twists and turns, hops and jumps, all around her neighborhood were engraved in her mind due to the thrill it brought …show more content…

The passion of the chase was comparable to the passion used in football. “Your fate..depended on your concentration and courage.” The results of the chase depended solely on the spontaneous decisions made during the chase. The spontaneity of the chase was like the quick impulse thinking of football. “If you hesitated in fear, you would miss and get hurt: you would take a hard fall…” Annie says this in paragraph 1 when describing football. This relates back to the chase because Annie was making many fast decisions to avoid getting caught. This thrill of not hesitating and just going was one of the main components of the chase that made it so memorable for Annie. When the man threw himself at the kids in a ruthless attempt to catch them, it reminded Annie of the “all or nothing” mentality you had to have in football. She says “it was an immense discovery,... this ordinary adult knew...you have to fling yourself at what you’re doing,...forget yourself” He gave his all chasing these kids, he didn’t even know, relentlessly. As well as Annie running away relentlessly from the man, using the skill of making rash decisions that she learned from

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