ANALYSIS OF “THE CHASER’’ BY JOHN COLLIER

In the story “The Chaser,” a young man named Alan Austen seeks help from an
old man in the neighborhood of Pell street, to provide a desperate solution to his
problem: he fell truly, madly, and deeply in love with a young lady named Diana, but she
is not interested in him and even seems to not notice him at all. The old man first
presented a potion which he called “a life cleaner,” a lethal poison that is worth $5,000,
which can get rid of troublesome people and have their lives ‘cleaned.” Alan did not
come for that but for the love potion, that will instantly turn Diana into a devoted and
loving wife, but the old man warned Alan about the constant long-term effects of the
potion including how obsessed and jealous she might be because of her utter love and
devotion for him. Alan seemed to ignore the old man’s warning and delightfully
proceeded in buying the potion he needs which only costs one dollar.
The first thing that I noticed in the story was how the author seemed to
characterize Alan as a young and naïve man. In his desperation to gain the love of
Diana, he did not even think through the consequences of his actions and even believed
that her utter devotion, obsession, and jealousy for him is a good thing. I believe that the
old man knew how naïve and desperate Alan was, (having encountered many situations
like what Alan has before) that he for sure would purchase that love potion despite his
warnings. I realized that the old man first showed the “life cleaner poison” because he
knew that Alan might also come back for the poison when he realizes that he is already
suffocated by how obsessive and possessive his girl has become. The old man already
knew that that is bound to happen since he encountered it many times before.
The author used the word “chaser” in the story title which means a drink of a
different kind taken immediately after a stronger or weaker one (Merriam-Webster,
n.d.). The chaser in the story represents the ‘poison’ that the old man refers to as “a
life cleaner,” because it was intended to get rid of the woman who is now a problem
by suffocating the man with too much love and obsessiveness. The first drink was the
love potion bought by Alan to make her fall in love with him. Thus, the old man was
fully aware that young men would come back to him willing to spend lots of money
just to correct the problems they created. He knew that a sufficient ‘teaspoonful of his
poison’ is an inevitable chaser that those young men would probably want to acquire,
after falling into his trap.

BENOGSODAN, RHOBIE SHAYNE A.