Childhood Memories In Annie Dillard's Essay 'The Chase'

In Annie Dillard’s essay, “The Chase” the reader is presented with a childhood memory she remembers as if it had happened to her yesterday. The memory of this part of her childhood brought her so much pure happiness. The quote “it was all or nothing. If you hesitated in fear you would miss and get hurt.” drew me into the essay. The questions which it had me thinking about were what was Dillard’s purpose of describing every sport she and the guys played and how exaggerated each play was? Why was this story so important in her life? Annie Dillard described the game of football as if it were a life or death situation, demonstrating the passion people have as a child for the smaller objectives in life.
The essay begins with an innocent description of Dillard’s childhood playing sports with her neighborhood friends. She uses an immense amount of imagery and internal conflicts of making sure you got the tackle, if not she would be letting the whole team down. Her imagery of the setting smoothly transitions into the snowy day her and friends decided to throw a snowball at a black Buick that happened to be driving down their street. Their day had gone fine there was no trouble …show more content…
The man wanted to feel young again he was angry but only said “you stupid kids” (77) with old age that rush does not occur as often the glory fades away with age. The essay was not just reflecting on the accomplishment of the children’s athletics. The perspective of the essay is from the child’s view and shows the child in the man that chased the children endlessly. The man found himself not giving up and had the passion to capture the children as he felt he was in his glory days. Annie learns about respect and became a better person after the chase as someone else has the same amount of passion as her in