The Chase Dillard Summary

The narration of the chase only lasts six paragraphs, though it seems longer, almost as if in real time. To recreate the breathlesness of the chase, Dillard explains what is happening, describes, in vivid detail, her surroundings, and delves into her own thoughts. Dillard also, intentionally leaves out time markers to draw attenion from the duration of the chase to the sheer excitement of it. In paragraph ten, when the chase starts, Dillard states that the man starts chasing them and they run away. Dillard then explains her shock at the fact that he continues to chase them. "Any normal adult would have quit, having sprung us into flight and made his point." Dillard goes on explaining his attire, "He was in city clothes: a suit and tie, …show more content…
Dillard uses exciting verbs to build the tension. "We smashed through a gap in another hedge, entered a scruffy backyard and ran around its back porch and tight between houses to Edgerton Avenue; we ran across Edgerton to an alley and up our own sliding woodpile to the Halls' front yard; he kept coming." Then, all of the sudden, Dillard interrupts with an epiphany. Dillard is then able to relate to her pursuer. "It was an immense discovery, pounding into my hot head with every sliding, joyous step, that this ordinary adult knew what I thought only children who trained at football knew: that you have to fling yourself at what you're doing, you have to point yourself, forget yourself, aim, dive." With this epiphany, Dillard shows that this man is not ordinary, "for he would never give up, this man- and we were losing speed." "He chased us the the backyard labyrinths of ten blocks before he caught us by our jackets. He caught us and we all stopped." With a drop of the hat on the moon, reality comes back (allowing everyone to catch their breath, of course). ""You stupid kids," he began prefunctorily. We listened prefunctorily indeed, if we listened at all, for the chewing out was redundant, a mere formality, and beside the