Ambrose Bierce, also known as "Bitter Bierce" (Mencken 107) amongst his peers, is known for his impeccable skill of displaying the harsh reality of man's true reactions to an unbearable situation. The majority of his short stories are about war and the problems that his characters encounter. His characters struggle with the realization that the life of a soldier has fallen short of its pageantry and glory. Bierce is able to give vivid imagery because of his first hand experience on the battlefield. Ambrose gives seamless details that help the reeader visualize the story. This Gothic writer has a great awareness of form. His biting wit captivates the imagination of his audience with plot twists. He also has the ability to describe any situation without filling the pages with tiring details. Critics often say it appears as though Bierce is writing in "the valley of the shadow of death." Bierce held his fellow man in a very low regard and often would place them in a low disregard in his writings. The prevailing themes of death, reality, and war in Ambrose Bierce's writing reflects a pessimistic outlook on the society and frailty of humanity.
It can be said that Bierce had the uncanny ability of informing the reader of some of the most minute details describing the circumstances or compromising situation of the protagonists in his stories. His skill for writing allowed him to do this without overwhelming his reader with an abundance of details. In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and in "Chickamauga," Bierce displays his talent for being able to describe the minutia.
In "Owl Creek Bridge" Bierce tells the story of a man who is being put to death by way of hanging. The details throughout the story make it amazingly easy to visualize the situation of this unfortunate soul. " It [the noose] was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to his knees." (Bierce 16) This particular excerpt shows the reader the location of the noose and the amount of slack provided for the fall. "Chickamauga" is another great story that tells of a young boy who goes into the forest to pretend he is a soldier. The six year old child does not get too far before he is startled by a small rabbit. The rabbit sends the fearless soldier into a retreat. The boy then finds himself in a clearing where a battle had apparently taken place a short time previously. This clearing is inhabited by wounded soldiers. The child mounts a wounded soldier as if he were a horse. The soldier bucks the boy. The boy, unmoved by the soldier's lack of a lower jaw, gets to the front of the aimlessly crawling wounded soldiers and prepares them to advance toward his home. When the boy makes it back to his home he realizes the seriousness of war. When he sees his home burning and his mother laying dead on the ground (Bierce 24-29), Bierce describes the mother's corpse to us in a grotesquely beautiful way. It is beautiful in the sense that he does a wonderful job of describing her to the reader. Bierce describes her mangled body as the
"[...] white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain protruded, over flowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles"
(Bierce 29). The imagery is gory but offers the reader a terrific description of the abuse inflicted on the female's body. There really are not a great deal of writers, who will go into such details as these without getting too carried away and most likely boring their reader with insignificant details. Bierce was hardly ever short on words when it came to discussing his disgust of his countrymen.
Ambrose loathed his fellow countrymen and often expressed this opinion in his writings. When Bierce would write about a man in a trying situation, the protagonists would always fall victim to his foolishness and his cowardice (Mencken 107) with little effort, if any effort at all, of escape. He was accustomed to placing the heroic man below rats and the average man even lower. Man's intellect was somewhere between sheep and cattle (Mencken 107).
Bierce was often referred to as an anti-patriot bent on demoralizing the United States. When confronted with this issue Bierce would respond with his sharp wit: " I love my country but tis' infested with my fellow countrymen."
Ambrose has an excellent talent for writing narration for his short stories. The events that take place in his short stories are narrated with a level of restraint (Partridge 107). Bierce however, uses multiple narratives to illustrate the scene (Rubens 96). While utilizing the restraint and using the multiple narratives the author allows the audience to visualize the same action from several "points of vantage" (Partridge 107). The style is complex but the surprise endings can be predicted if one follows the created "conundrum saturated with clues the receptive reader can employ" (Rubens 95). The narrative of his stories is one of the defining factors in what makes him a Gothic writer. The narration gets the reader more involved and extends the protagonists perplexity into the readers mind (Rubens 96). Sometimes his narration involves the presence of a narrative within a narrative.
Ambrose is a very respected writer by those who understand his work. Critics of his writings have difficulty focusing on one particular area of his expertise. They, for the most part, list multiple qualities of his works that stand out and make him such a revered writer. Rubens, for instance, comments on how well Bierce was able to actively and emotionally involve his readers (Rubens 95-96). "His writing produces a dark shadowy effect" and his writings are that of a "complex formula drawn out by a master scientist" (Starrett 90). Starrett enjoys the immense range in Bierce's writing and sees how Bierce's war background gives him his morbid edge (Starrett 90). Ambrose has a a style uniquely all his own. Modern critics say he is a cross between Edgar Allen Poe and O' Henry.
"Although Bierce stands on the mountain-peak of American Weird literature there is a touch of naiveté in his writing" (Lovecraft 90). His style is "... derived from his journalistic background." His journalistic background causes his writing to to have an uneven and jaunty flow (Lovecraft 90). Cooper feels "the technique is mechanical and too artificial" (Cooper 107). Cooper thinks Bierce will never receive popularity among the Anglo-Saxon race. His writing seems to be to crude and has the "... flavor of a hospital or a morgue" (Cooper 107). According to the two critics mentioned, the Biercian style is not worthy of comparison to the father of Gothic writing, Poe.
Irony is a commonly employed technique in Bierce's writings. Bierce wrote war stories as a sort of Pacifist. Through his writings he acted as if he were against war. In reality, Ambrose Bierce did not disapprove of war, in fact during his time of service he derived a great deal of cynical delight from war (Mencken 90). He just wanted to show the world the slaughter and carnage of war. The goal was to help the world escape the idealistic notion that war is heroic and something to glorify (Mencken 90). In "Chickamauga" he demonstrates the mindset of a recruit going into war through a deaf little boy. The child sets off from his home and into the forest where he disappears out of the sight of his mother. He is full of glee when he comes across "his" soldiers. The fact they are all wounded and on the brink of dying does not seem to bother him. He leads them back to his house to find everything he has known and loved burned to the ground and his mother dead. The boy is traumatized at this discovery. The boy symbolizes the soldier who is going off to battle assuming he will kill a few bad guys and will come home a hero. When he reaches the battlefield he quickly realizes war is not not the glamorized version with which he is familiar. The seriousness of the situation sets in when he notices his fellow soldiers dying in front of him. The deafness of the boy is like the people who are perceiving war as wonderful thing despite what they hear, and then when they see it first hand they come to grip with the true horrors of war.
The conflict between between illusion and reality is a struggle that the characters in Biercian literature have to endure with. "Chickamauga" for example has the little boy who struggles with finding out war is real and not a game. In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" Payton Farquhar is man that is being hung for interfering with the reconstruction of a bridge (Bierce 18). Payton as he takes his last breath and tries to focus his thoughts on his wife and children (Bierce 19). While he is doing so the sergeant moves to the side allowing the sleeper [railroad tie] to fall causing Payton to fall with it (Bierce 18). As Farquhar is in flight he remembers the moment that got him in the position he is in now. When his flashback catches up to the present time the reader begins to think what happens next is the true account in the victims' real life. The character wants out of the fatal situation to the extreme that he starts to hallucinate and believe that, the rope that is suspending him has broken and enabled him to escape. In reality Farquhar is still being drained of every ounce of life remaining in his body. The character in Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge died believing he had been smitethed by an outside force other than the rope.
The Biercian character is not a stranger to the physical and mental anguish associated with war. The boy in "Chickamauga" felt the emotional pain of war when faced with the death of his mother. Payton Farquhar experienced the physical as well as the emotional effects of war. Payton had to deal with never seeing his family and the noose around his neck I am sure did not feel to good. Bierce gave the reader an excellent depiction of the physical part of war. He did this by describing the the soldier in "Chickamauga" in full detail. "A face that lacked a lower jaw-from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splintered bone" (Bierce 27). This line lets you see how horribly the soldiers were battered and some of these soldiers would endure the pain caused by the wounds for long extended periods of time.
The distortion of time has made itself evident throughout Bierces writings. A prime example of this is found in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" . As the character is falling to his death, the time brings us back to when Payton decided to be a patriot and ruin the unions plans for building the bridge over Owl Creek. He obviously gets caught and then the story brings us back to what appears to be the present. The captive man is set free by a faulty rope and he then floats his way to safety . Bierce slowed time down and within the few seconds it takes for Payton to strangulate, we are witnessing a few days worth of events. Bierce uses this technique to his advantage by way of tricking the reader into thinking what is happening is actually what is real,but the actual events that are taking place are not real but taking place in the imagination of the the victim. This style of manipulation of time is commonly employed throughout his works. It can be a bit confusing to understand what is taking place at first but a truly perceptive reader will pick up on the technique with little problem.
The protagonists in Ambrose Bierces writing have no bravery and do not respect themselves enough to work their way out of a problem. They more often find themselves cowardly running from the ordeal or killing themselves to escape what they think will inevitably end in death. The characters in Biercian writing cannot see past the now and will think he can not escape. He will break down and give in to his emotions and let his fears dominate his thoughts. The soldier in Bierces writings is not a great heroic person but more of a coward struggling with his own fears and guilt's. Soldiers in his stories. The prematurely observant protagonists thinks without sense and often finds himself in troubling situations because of it. The character often follows an emotional pattern that would range from cowardice to fear and this would eventually end in death (Rubens 96). Bierce delighted in the cowardice and follies in man and loved to write about these short comings of his countrymen.(Mencken 107).
There was no kindness in Ambrose Bierce and had no respect for his countrymen. He held them in a low regard (Mencken 107). The personage in his stories would be created with a higher sensitivity to a situation than a normal person outside of his stories would express. Ambrose Bierce wrote his characters reactions with an extreme exaggeration of a normal emotion (Rubens 96). If a character was scared, he would be portrayed as overwhelmingly scared and if angry overwhelmingly angry. The protagonists struggle between hope and desire (Rubens 96). Soldiers would submit to torture and outrage without resistance (Mencken 107). The characters often died at the hands of their own imagination (Rubens 96). Stories that take place on the battlefield of the civil war depict soldiers as "bewildered fools" (Mencken 107). Soldiers do things without sense or awareness of the possible outcome will be with their irrational decision (Mencken 106). The characters have too much concern focused on the past when they should worry about the situation at hand (Rubens 96).
Bierce is a very well respected author and a not so respected author. It can be found that the reason some critics dislike his work is among the same reasons why others do like his work. Some dislike him for his Gothic style and say he is mimicking Poe to much, while other favoring Bierces work would say that is what they appreciate about his work. His style is somewhat unorthodox and extreme but not as extreme as other authors like E.E. Cummings. Bierce still have his place with his ability to master the manipulation of time. He used this as a tool to better form his plot twist and attempt to confuse his reader with a bizarre twist at the end. The multiple narratives at times can be confusing but after the first few pages begin to get the hang of reading them and start to fall into the story more. He offers the narratives that are given through out the story are there to help you see the same event from different perspective. This compliments to the irony of his stories. The Characters are hard to read because the stories are so vivid and real and reading about these people that are weak-minded and fear lifes obstacles and will do just about anything to escape them. Most of the time the choose death to escape. The world of Biercian literature is so disturbingly real and morbidly interesting that it makes it hard not to like him as an author and interested in him as a person. A lot of these stories will make you call into question your own faith in mans abilities. This style can be seen as a combination between O' Henry and Poe. Which makes Poe a free standing writer in a class all his own.
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