willing to take "no" for an answer from Diana. He is willing to drug her with a magic potion in order to win her affections. In his opinion, the potion will end all of his conflict with Diana; however, the mysterious potion seller knows differently. The seller knows that an entirely new conflict will arise after Diana takes the potion. Alan will eventually feel so suffocated by Diana's incessant need to be with him every second that he will need to come back to the seller to purchase the $5,000 chaser.

The conflict in "The Chaser" is not dramatized or described in the story. It is not an internal conflict of Alan Austen's. There is no conflict between him and the old man either. The conflict is a very serious one that is taking place entirely offstage. Alan is passionately in love with a girl named Diana--but Diana is not in love with him. This is an old, old story. Boy wants girl but girl doesn't want boy; or girl wants boy but boy doesn't want girl. It is a conflict because he is still pursuing her. Many of us have been through this type of experience--either as the pursuer or the pursued. Alan comes to the old man's shop out of desperation. Presumably he will win the conflict of wills once he has possession of the magic potion. The old man fully expects him to win but also expects him to regret that he won the girl. Perhaps there is a deeper meaning to this story. If the girl is so hard to get, maybe she has a real antipathy to Alan which will come out after they are married and cause a lot of discord. Maybe no means no!

The main idea of John Collier's short story "The Chaser" is an exploration of what love is. Alan is the story's main character, and he deeply desires a relationship with Diana. He is completely smitten with her. Unfortunately, it does not appear that Diana is equally taken with Alan, and that is why he is seeking ways to drug Diana into reciprocating his feelings. This is one area where the story's main idea about love can begin to be explored. Readers are meant to question whether or not Alan is actually in love with Diana. He surely has feelings for her, but we are meant to question whether or not his feelings are actually love or merely infatuation and even perhaps lust. It should become clear to readers that Alan has a fairly warped view of what a loving relationship between two people is because he claims that Diana's borderline worship of Alan must surely be love.

"She will want to know all you do," said the old man. "All that has happened to you during the day. Every word of it. She will want to know what you are thinking about, why you smile suddenly, why your are looking sad."

"That is love!" cried Alan.

"Yes," said the old man. "How carefully she will look after you! She will never allow you to be tired, to sit in a draught, to neglect your food. If you are an hour late, she will be terrified. She will think you are killed, or that some siren has caught you."

"I can hardly imagine Diana like that!" cried Alan, overwhelmed with joy.

Alan's perception of love is incredibly one sided. He essentially desires a woman that caters to his every need, yet he never once stops to consider what Diana might need or want. Finally, the story even brings up ideas about gender roles in relationships. Alan somehow believes that it is acceptable for him to drug a woman in order to force her to like him. He desires to possess Diana, and that equates her, as a woman, to merely an object that is meant to be obtained and used. Alan doesn't see love as a commitment between two people. He sees it as something he is entitled to obtain.

Yes, I suppose one might say that the antagonist is the young woman with whom the protagonist Alan Austen is in love. She does not appear in the story, but her importance is obvious. He loves her but she doesn't love him. He has undoubtedly tried other means of getting Diana to fall in love with him. (She is appropriately named, because Diana in mythology was a virginal young goddess who could not be won by any man.) We can tell that Diana must be a strong antagonist because she is so difficult to win. The old man who sells love potions is the lover's last resort. He will help Alan win Diana but expects to make a big profit in the long run. Presumably Alan wins the conflict with Diana. The old man is neither the protagonist nor the antagonist. He is an amused observer. He has seen the same conflict many times before. The story ends with Alan exiting the shop with the magic love potion and the old man saying, "Au revoir," or "I'll be seeing you." But it is the conflict between Alan and Diana--that drives the story. A protagonist does not necessarily have to appear in a story, nor does an antagonist, although it might be impossible to find a story in which neither the protagonist nor the antagonist appeared as a character.