45 pages • 1 hour read
Gordon KormanChasing the Falconers
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Eagles
When the Falconer children are sent to Sunnydale Farm, a juvenile detention center in remote Nebraska, the judge orders a change to their surname because “he [doesn’t] want the children suffering for their parents’ crimes” (5). They are given the name Eagleson because of its similarity to Falconer: “Falcon, eagle—like this was some kind of April Fools’ prank,” Aiden thinks (5). The eagle is synonymous with the United States government. It is the national bird and sits perched atop flag poles and spread across the Great Seal. Thus, when Aiden and Meg are given the surname Eagleson by a federal judge, they are marked as belonging to the government. They are the sons of eagles—“the responsibility of Adler and Juvenile Corrections” (147), as Agent Harris puts it. Harris continues to feel responsible for this transformation, reflecting, “I made then what they are today— motherless, fatherless, homeless fugitives” and transforming them into wards of the state” (111). Yet the eagle is not meant to be caged; it symbolizes freedom and liberty and justice. By caging the children, they take away the essential freedoms inherent in the dogma surrounding American democracy. Their freedom is taken, their liberties are restricted, and justice is out of reach. In taking over as wardens of the Falconers and calling them the sons of eagles, they have stripped the children of their inherent rights as Americans.
Freddy’s Television
Miguel Reyes has a very simple dream, and he risks everything to achieve it. He aches to escape Sunnydale in order to return to his brother’s home in New Jersey: “He’s got, like, seven hundred channels, plasma screen, satellite dish, the works! That’s for me” (14). The fantastic television setup sits in stark contrast to the lack of luxury and comfort at the juvenile detention center, where “[t]he TV [i]s barely watchable, with faded color and a jumping picture” (13). For Miguel, the television setup in his brother’s home represents family and comfort, two things denied to him in the juvenile detention system. He has been denied the comfort of family and home and dreams only of finding those most essential of needs: safety and comfort. With his brother Freddy, he’ll have family, and with Freddy’s setup, they’ll have comfort.
Midway to New Jersey, Miguel reminds the Falconers of what he’s searching for: “Wait till you see the sweet setup Freddy’s got—flat-screen TV, surround sound, quicksand couch—you sink into those pillows!” (112). Reyes has risked everything in the journey to find family and comfort. If he’s caught, he understands that he’ll be relegated to the adult system.
When they at last arrive in New Jersey, Aiden takes in the reality of Freddy’s home: “The house was small and shabby, with cracked plaster walls dividing the space into tiny rooms. At the end of the hall, Aiden could see an enormous TV screen” (113). Miguel’s vision of comfort is, to Aiden, shabby, a testament to the relative attainability of a future that remains out of reach for Miguel. Even worse, Freddy kicks him out: “For Miguel, coming to New Jersey to live with his brother had always been the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He had contemplated it, fantasized about it, obsessed over it—in custody, and on every mile of their long flight from Nebraska” (114). What Miguel actually wanted was the security of family and the comfort of a home—something like what he might see on television.
Loud Noises
Terror comes into the lives of the innocent Falconers in the form of sudden, sharp noises described using militaristic language. The motif of sudden, loud noises shattering the peace emphasizes the innocence of the child fugitives and the terror inflicted on them by the government’s unjust actions. Governments are the perpetrators of war, and as the government pursues two innocent children on the run, they bring with them the terror of war. Aiden and Meg are outmanned and outgunned in this war and can hope to survive only by hiding from the government and never engaging. Still, the sounds of war echo around the children as they flee.
Having escaped the government-run detention center, the Falconers find themselves facing an angry farm dog that begins to bark: “Against the backdrop of stillness, the barking was like the roar of carpet bombing exploding all around them” (35). Later, upon entering the gas station as fugitives and hearing the bell chime, Aiden thinks, “It might as well have been a bomb blast” (49). As the children are running from a helicopter’s overhead approach, they sprint, “with all the misery and horror of the past months acting as their booster rockets” (60). The children know and use military language in describing the terror surrounding their fugitive escape to highlight their innocence in comparison to the massive arsenal at the hands of their pursuers.
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