THE SUN CHASER
Starting Point. “You ask about the germinal idea of ‘The Sun Chaser.’ How can I tell you, for how do I know, what the germinal idea of my story is! I can recognize it after the story is written. But that makes it all the more difficult to say with certainty that the ‘idea’ is germinal. What Ambrose seeks is what every one of us in the world—even a Sun Chaser—wants: HAPPINESS. And the more ill-balanced or crippled a nature is, the more importunate is this demand for happiness....
“It is easier to tell you how I came to write ‘The Sun Chaser’ than to tell you anything about it.... Early one morning in October I was sitting at my writing table in my little log cabin up in the Maine wilderness. It was about half past five, and I had started my fire and had my cup of cocoa and my crust of bread and was ready for work. But I sat there watching the dawn. Ahead of me I had one of the endless pot-boilers to do by means of which I provided bread and butter and met my responsibilities. The very thought of doing another of these ‘things’ made me feel ill and tired. Suddenly up over the field before my cabin with the dawn I saw the fleeing figure of the SUN CHASER running towards me. More I cannot tell you except that it was like listening to wonderful music as I sat there seeing the story unfold. I did nothing that morning except ‘listen.’ And for the next month I did no pot-boilers, but work on this story.... January first of that year I took up college lecturing and since then I have written no pot-boilers....”—Jeannette Marks.
Classification. A novelette of twelve divisions, almost epical. (But see Miss Marks’s own comment, below. It is noteworthy that the present analyst uses the word “epic” to characterize the story, whereas Miss Marks sees in it a lack of the epic quality. Or so the implication runs.)
Apart from length, the character interest shifts from the Sun Chaser to his daughter, and his wife; the dénouement emphasizes the child’s sacrifice. The epilogue emphasizes the inhumanity of man to man, and its abeyance in one case because of the sacrifice.
(The designation of the work as a novelette is, in all its bearings, indicative of values greater than those of the short-story.)
Plot. Enumerate the earlier stages of the plot action. The dramatic climax is formed by the vividly summarized struggle between the Sun Chaser and his wife and child. Important steps toward the end of the action are: the placing of the Sun Chaser in the town lock-up; the mother’s leaving Pearl alone while she goes to return the wash; Pearl’s journeying to feed her father. (This journey is, in itself, the largest struggle within the narrative; for, the struggle to find happiness—as Miss Marks has indicated—is the chief one.) Study the various phases of the child’s battle against the forces of nature.
The Climax of Action. Pearl falls in the snow.
Dénouement. Her body is found.
Characterization. The most remarkable characterization exists in the case of the Sun Chaser. Miss Marks’s ability to reflect the mentality of his brain is particularly worthy of study.
In contrast to the Chaser, and yet not in violent opposition, is his wife. Study her portrait, looking for her sense of the practical, softened by her own love and gentleness. What reaction on you is effected by her effort to keep her husband from the lock-up?
Pearl is tenderly and delicately drawn, and yet she evinces the practicality of her mother. See, e.g., pages 227, 244. In what ways is she the character who most compels sympathy? Would she do so, apart from the final supreme sacrifice?
Details. The clip-clop of Ambrose’s walk is a good example of the sound effects which increase the dramaturgic quality. Point out other instances. The lamp in Ambrose’s home, “torch of flame and blackened stream of smoke,” is illustrative of the color contribution. Give other examples. But, in this story, greater in value than either sound or color is the sense of motion. Mr. O’Brien calls attention to the “rhythmical progression” of the narrative. To this suggestion, add your own interpretation of the movement. Is there in the idea of the search for happiness a connotation of something never achieved, never-ended? and with the search a constant necessity for “Going—going—going”?
How does the story affect you emotionally? With regard to individual moments, how does the behavior of the liquor dealer move you? Is “contempt” the feeling you have for him, or is it stronger? What is your predominant feeling for Ambrose? Sympathy is incited through a combination of human relationships: 1. Pearl’s love for her father; 2. Sybil Clarke’s love for Pearl, and 3. her pity for Ambrose, her husband. What reaction is aroused by the incident wherein Pearl and David figure?
Author’s Comment. “Is ‘The Sun Chaser’ any longer than some of Stevenson’s short stories, or Balzac’s or Guy de Maupassant’s?... And what is a short story, anyhow? Isn’t the range of narrative the question involved in a short story? In a play I can tell from the ‘feel’ of the material whether it is a one-acter or full dress length. Isn’t there a suggestion of the epic tendency in the novelettes as well as the novel:—the incidental use of incident, for example, contributing to the sense of mass? This is the sort of tendency one may not admit to short story or play where concentration is so much greater. As I see it, now that it is done, ‘The Sun Chaser’ structurally as well as spiritually is marked by extreme concentration, and for that reason, personally, it would seem to me to be a short story.... The short story appeals to me from the technical point of view because it is more perfect than the novel, even as I consider the play to be more perfect structurally than the short story. I believe in concrete foundations and steel superstructures, and these, I think, can be built for the play, but not for the short story any more than for the poem.... It seems to me that the well-equipped artist always has a feeling for structure. Analysis, however, does not precede creation. Because of the nature of the creative artist’s mind, it does not necessarily follow creation, either. There may be actual inability to analyze. It’s as difficult to see the sum total of the work you’ve done as to see the sum total of yourself. The creative artist is not an analytical chemist of his own mental processes.... I have no standards.... I think that the thing which ‘arrives’ in short story or play is, like beauty, ‘its own excuse for being.’”—Jeannette Marks.