Analysis Essay

Submitted By blargalarg
Words: 494
Pages: 2

Theme of The Chaser In the story The Chaser, a young man named Alan Austen is in love with a girl that does not even really acknowledge his existence. Alan goes to see this old man to buy a love potion from him. The main theme of this story is that when we are young, we are naïve and become wiser with age. In The Chaser, Alan is a young man hopelessly in love. When he goes to buy this love potion, the old man tells him exactly what this love potion will do when the girl drinks it. The potion will make her one hundred percent faithful to him and will make her constantly question him about his day and want to know everything that happened and make sure that everything is just peachy. Alan simply and naïvely responds to all of these descriptions by saying things like “Wonderful!” (Collier 2) or “That is love!” (Collier 2). The old man in the story is very wise and it shows by the way he presents the love potion to Alan. Instead of just handing him the love potion, he first shows Alan a type of untraceable poison and tells him that it costs five thousand dollars (Collier 1). He then goes on to explain the love potion to Alan and sells it to him at a measly cost of one dollar. The old man knows that Alan will return later in life for the poison. He sells the love potion at an extremely low price so that it is guaranteed to be sold. Eventually the effects of the potion will start driving the person who bought it crazy and they will want a way out of the relationship. However, this love potion makes it nearly impossible to simply break up. The person will eventually remember what the old man