Childhood In Ambrose Bierce's Chickamauga

You know a man to be rather interesting when the first thing someone tells you about them is their incredibly peculiar disappearance. Ambrose Bierce disappeared somewhere into Mexico after December 26, 1913, the date found on what is presumed to be his last letter. Carlos Fuentes, famous contemporary writer of Mexico, swears that you can still hear stories of some old foreigner wandering the Mexican landscape. This, paired with Bierce’s own impressive works and history, inspired writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, and of course, Fuentes himself. This is what I believe to lie at the core of Chickamauga; that which we pass on to the next generation. Chickamauga is a piece of anti-war fiction that details a young boy’s fateful adventure into the woods. Bierce begins describing the child in the second paragraph on page 343, but we are never actually given a name. However, the line that interests me most is slightly below that in which Bierce speaks of the boy’s father: “In the peaceful life of a planter the warrior-fire remained; once kindled, it is never extinguished.” Now, he is speaking of the father, but it is from his books and pictures the boy learns to craft a simple, wooden sword. Weapon in hand, the child embarks on his soon-to-be morbid adventure, vanquishing foes only …show more content…
Destroyed structures scatter the area, burned or still burning. Eager to aid in fueling the flames, the boy attempts to find something he can use as kindling, but cannot find anything. Dismayed he throws his weapon into the flames a “surrender to the superior forces of nature” which, when compared to the next part of the story could be interpreted as the boy losing his innocence (the sword) to the forces of nature (war). The boy, looking about for a moment, realizes where he is. His own home. After a brief survey of what had been his house, he finds his deceased mother, and we are finally given insight into the boy’s condition. He is a deaf