“The Chase” a Fiction Story by Alberto Moravia

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Table of Contents

Introduction
Analysis of ‘The Chase’
Conclusion
References

Introduction

The Chase is a fiction short story by the Italian Neorealistic author by Alberto Moravia. The analysis of the human type of the incompetent and the interpretation of the crisis of the modern conscience connect Moravia’s work to the genre of writing. This paper examines one of his works The Chase.

Analysis of ‘The Chase’

The narrator in the story relates the story of his wife whom he has followed and finds that she is having an affair with another man. The chase that the author refers to is the act of following his wife as she boards a bus to meet her husband. At no point in the story is the wife aware that her husband is actually following her and the story ends when he sees his wife, embracing and kissing her lover passionately. The author has a fixation for the wild element that exists in his wife and he likens her to a wild beast that knows no bonds and is free of encumbrances.

According to the narration, when the author was a young child, he had seen his father stalking a bird and rather fascinated, he had followed his father. The stalking went on for a few minutes till the bird was shot after which the dead bird was handed to the boy. While the chase had enthralled the boy, he was mortified by the way it ended and when the corpse was handed to him, he felt a deep revulsion and broke into tears. As a child, the boy has formed an association with a wild animal, a chase and the outcome and as a grown man; these feelings have become so deep rooted and almost border on paranoia. When he finds his wife embracing and kissing another man, he is loathe intervening as he fears the chase would end with his wide dead and bleeding.

Another undercurrent that has been portrayed is that when the wife meets the man, she has made it seem as if there was no fixed time and place but as if she is casually strolling by and the man sees her and takes her. The author is trying to show that the encounter here is just a coincidence without any predestined intent. The element of the hunt and the chase has been brought about strongly here as the wide is shown as a wild thing who has ventured out and has been hunted by the man. It should be noted that the author has made constant allusions to her wildness, in the way she moves, her odor and the way in which she smoothens her short skirt over her thighs. He says that “I had noticed the irrevocable and so to speak the invisible character of her gestures and personality, something which gave one the feeling of a thing already seen and already done and which therefore evaded even the most determined observation. Another important fact to be noted is that the author speaks of a certain transformation of her character when she turns from a fox to a hen and this is just before she steps out to meet her lover.

When the author is stalking his wife, the city seems like the forest to him and the chase that he is giving to his wife reminds him of the bird that had been shot “Then there came back to me and I saw the bus was the undergrowth with its bushes and trees, my wife the bird perching on the bough while I, unseen watched it living before my eyes and the whole town during this pursuit became as though by magic, a fact of nature like the countryside, the houses were hills, the streets valleys, the vehicles hedges and woods and even the passersby on the pavement had something unpredictable and autonomous that is wild about hem. And in my mouth, behind my clenched teeth, there was the acrid metallic taste of gunfire and my eyes usually listless and wandering had become sharp, watchful and attentive’.

Conclusion

The analysis of the story shows how the author has used the concept of the wild element, the hunter and the hunted and the writing best represents the neorelastic style.

References

Jan Zlotnik Schmidt and Carley Rees Bogarad. Legacies. Fiction, Poetry, Drama, Nonfiction: Third Edition.

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“The Chase” a Fiction Story by Alberto Moravia

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