“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?