Ambrose Bierce Essay, Research Paper

“The Wickedest Man In San Francisco”

Serving as a union soldier in the Civil War, Bierce learned of war’ s

savageness, and how stupid and degrading it was. His writing style can be

contributed to his war time experiences. His works are blunt, brutally

realistic, and his attacks on others in the San Francisco Examiner, (American

Authors 1600-1900 76) were nowhere near politically correct. Bierce’s short

stories “often hinge on an ironic surprising conclusion” (Contemporary

Authors 48), as in one of his better known works “An Occurrence At Owl

Creek Bridge”, were the sudden death of a Confederate spy catches us by

surprise. A forerunner of the realist movement, Ambrose Bierce’s cynical

views of live and human existence gave him the nickname, “the wickedest

man in San Francisco” (Contemporary Authors 41).

Although often portrayed as a realist for his accounts on the Civil

War, “Bierce was not striving for documentary realism, as he himself

admitted”(Short Story Criticism 48). Instead, Bierce was interested in

manipulating the reader’s viewpoint. The perspective in which the story is

written is used to manipulate the reader’s viewpoint, for example in

“Chickamauga”, where a bloody battlefield is seen through the eyes of a deaf

child(Short Story Criticism 48), or in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”,

where a man about to be hanged for treason, dreams of his escape. Bierce’s

often ironic twists leave the reader stunned. As noted by Alfred Kazin,

“There is invariably a sudden reversal, usually in a few lines near the end,

that takes the story away from the reader, as it were, that overthrows his

confidence in the nature of what he has been reading, that indeed overthrows

his confidence” (Short Story Criticism 49). For all of this, why is Bierce

considered a realist? Bierce, unlike any other short story author before him,

was not romantic with his war depictions. He painted in our mind, its

gruesomeness, its wastefulness. Bierce’s stories depict soldiers “as

bewildered fools, doing things without sense, submitting to torture and

outrage without resistance, dying at last like hogs”(Discovering Authors

Mencken, H.L.). Nonetheless, as stated by Clifton Fadiman, a literary

critic, “what he writes has the bitter-aloes taste of truth. He helped blaze the

trail for later and doubtless better realists” (Discovering Authors Fadiman,

Clifton).

Bierce’s fascination, his focal point, in many of his literary works

is none other than death. One can even state he was obsessed with it. From

his gruesome descriptions of human suffering and decay, to the ironic deaths

of many of his characters, death was his only constant. “Death was Bierce’s

favorite character”(Discovering Authors Wilson, Edmund), and often

considered his only character. “In all Bierce’s fiction, there are no men or

women who are interesting as men or women — that is, by reason of their

passions, their aspirations or their personalities. They figure only as the

helpless butts of sadistic practical jokes, and their higher faculties are so

little involved that they might almost as well be trapped animals.”

(Discovering Authors Wilson, Edmund) Bierce placed humans “somewhere

between the sheep and the horned cattle”, as stated by H.L. Mencken. “There

was nothing of the milk of human kindness in old Ambrose; he did not get

the nickname of Bitter Bierce for nothing. What delighted him most in this

life was the spectacle of human cowardice and folly” (Discovering Authors

Mencken, H. L.).

For all of this, why is Bierce remembered? This “pessimism

machine”(Discovering Authors Fadiman, Clifton), whose works grew

repetitive and dull with his continuous depictions of death and human

suffering, had a special gift. With, his use of irony, and his sometimes

brilliant use of words, he was capable of getting a laugh or a smile

out of the death or deterioration of one of his characters. As in two of his

works “My Favorite Murder” and “Oil of Dog”, Bierce was able to get a

chuckle out of the passing of another. Another reason for Bierce’s

remembrance is for his transformation of the short story. As stated by H. E.

Bates, “Bierce began to shorten the short story; he began to bring to it a

sharper, more compressed method”(Short Story Criticism 49).

Bierce who was often considered bitter, opened a door to a new type

of writing.[Unlike most of the authors before his time, his works did not

always feature an optimistic viewpoint.] From his wartime experiences

Bierce gained a different perspective on war than earlier war writers, and is

often labeled a realist for this. A forerunner of the realist movement,

Ambrose Bierce’s cynical views of live and human existence gave him the

nickname, “the wickedest man in San Francisco.”(Contemporary Authors

41).

Works Cited

“Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett 1842-1914?” Contemporary Authors. Ed.

Frances C. Locher. New Revised Series, Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale

Research, 1982. 75-76.

“Bierce, Ambrose Gwinett 1842-1914?” Contemporary Authors. Ed.

Frances C. Locher. New Revised Series, Vol. 104. Detroit: Gale

Research, 1982. 41.

“Bierce, Ambrose” American Authors: 1600-1900. Sixth Edition. New

York : The N.W. Wilson Company, 1964. 76-77.

“Bierce, Ambrose 1842-1914.” DISCovering Authors, Gale Research Inc.,

1993.