“ The Chaser ”

(John Collier)

Actually this is a part of my project when i was in fifth semester in my study. I am not a person who loves anything about linguistics and literature, but here I tried to make a simple review about The Chaser, the short story that was written by John Collier.

In my opinion the short story of "The Chaser" by John Collier is about a guy named Alan who goes to an old man to get a poison in order to get the woman that he loves to fall in love with him for the rest of their lives. But throughout the story the old man begins to saying how much she will love him and how no matter what he does, even if he did some mistakes, she would always forgive him. The old man gave him two options glove cleaner which could make her in death and has a high price and the other one was love poison which could make her fall in love with him and accepted everything that he wanted. The last, Alan chose the cheaper one that was a love poison.

The title of this short story is not really suitable I think, because this is about the young man who needs a help to get his love by using a liquid which can make the girl who is loved by him subjected. The setting of this story is "The Chaser" is on Pell Street in a tiny room with no furniture inside of it, in an apothecary’s office at night. This setting makes the story seam kind of mysterious and a little creepy, this is because I don't think there are many house's that have a room with absolutely no furniture in it is just a little mysterious. The purpose of giving this story a good setting is in order to get you a good image and description of the setting in order to give us a type of mood for the story. The plot of this story describes Alan wants Diana to fall in love with him, but since she hasn't, he is desperate enough to go to the apothecary to get the love potion. Love is meant to be natural, but Alan ignores that. When the old man explains to Alan all the effects of the love potion, Alan finds them all as wonderful things. He does not realize that the strength of the potion could cause him to leave Diana, or even want "the life cleaner" to kill her. Love can be deceiving in many ways. Many people see love as romantic dinners, flowers and chocolate, but it means much more than that. There are many different ways to express love, but being tricked or forced into it like Alan plans to do, is not true love.

The Theme of this short story is you never know what you want until you finally have it. This is because Alan doesn't know what it is like to have Diana take this poison and he doesn't know what it will be like to be with her forever after Diana takes this poison. That is why the theme is you don't really know what you want until you finally have it. Alan doesn't know what he wants but he's going to find out what it's like to finally have her forever, or for a really long time. 

The character of this story, there are three persons: Alan a love struck man that is in love with Diana and will do anything to get her to love him and who is desperate to get the love of his life, Diana, to feel the same way back “ I can hardly imagine Diana like that ….. ”. Old Man- is an old man who sells love poisons cheap, but when they come back he sells them a very expensive life cleaner and The man seeks a love potion, which would make Diana head over heels in love with him after consuming it “ I should not have mentioned the other matter to you. It is only when one….. ”. The second main character in the short story is the old apothecary .Diana- a girl who isn't in love with Alan, but Alan is completely head over heels for Diana.

That's all about "The Chaser", the simple review about it. Such kind of short story which is really meaningful for everyone who really loves about romantic story. Enjoy the simple review and god bless you guys ^^