The Terrible Glorification of War in “Chickamauga”
To those who have not seen war through the eyes of a soldier, the prospect of going to battle for one’s country, land, rights, or religion may seem glorious, or even romantic. But to those, like Ambrose Bierce, who fought for the Union Army in the Civil War, war is a deadly game that can leave its survivors physically and emotionally scarred. Bierce utilized his talents as a writer after the war to share the horrors that he witnessed and experienced with the public. Young men are killed, maimed and mangled. Families are torn apart and bystanders are annihilated – collateral damage. In “Chickamauga,” Ambrose Bierce uses an innocent deaf-mute child’s point of view in conjunction with vivid …show more content…
The child shakes the notion that these lethargic creatures are animals, realizing “they [are] men. They [creep] upon their hands and knees… They [strive] to rise to their feet, but [fall] prone in the attempt” (407). Bierce continues to embellish the scene, as these soldiers continue “on and ever on,” (408), with their “singularly white” (408) faces “streaked and gouted with red” (408). The child, amused by his new companions, and wanting to continue his game, attempts to mount one like one might mount a horse, or like he had in play “ridden [his father’s negroes], ‘making believe’ they were his horses” (408). After he bestrides his chosen “beast of burden,”
The man [sinks] upon his breast, [recovers], [flings] the small boy fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then [turns] upon him a face that [lacks] a lower jaw – from the upper teeth to the throat [is] a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, [gives] this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and breast by the blood of its quarry. …show more content…
As he emerges from the forest, the child discovers the source of the light, “the blazing ruin of a dwelling. Desolation everywhere. In all the wide glare bit a living thing was visible” (409). At this point, though, the child has not grasped the true root of the blaze, and “[dances] with glee” (409) around the flames, and “[runs] about collecting fuel” (409) to encourage the inferno. Suddenly, “he [recognizes] the blazing building as his own home” (409), and the true awfulness of what has occurred there begins to dawn on his young mind. Ultimately, he finds “the dead body of a woman” (410), who he recognizes as his mother – a horrible experience for the child. But the reader’s horror continues as Bierce details the scene even more graphically: “The greater part of the forehead [is] torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain [protrudes], overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles – the work of a shell!” (410). With that, Bierce forces us to simultaneously experience the child’s awful realization that he has lost all, while we visualize the butchery of an authentic wartime
To those who have not seen war through the eyes of a soldier, the prospect of going to battle for one’s country, land, rights, or religion may seem glorious, or even romantic. But to those, like Ambrose Bierce, who fought for the Union Army in the Civil War, war is a deadly game that can leave its survivors physically and emotionally scarred. Bierce utilized his talents as a writer after the war to share the horrors that he witnessed and experienced with the public. Young men are killed, maimed and mangled. Families are torn apart and bystanders are annihilated – collateral damage. In “Chickamauga,” Ambrose Bierce uses an innocent deaf-mute child’s point of view in conjunction with vivid …show more content…
The child shakes the notion that these lethargic creatures are animals, realizing “they [are] men. They [creep] upon their hands and knees… They [strive] to rise to their feet, but [fall] prone in the attempt” (407). Bierce continues to embellish the scene, as these soldiers continue “on and ever on,” (408), with their “singularly white” (408) faces “streaked and gouted with red” (408). The child, amused by his new companions, and wanting to continue his game, attempts to mount one like one might mount a horse, or like he had in play “ridden [his father’s negroes], ‘making believe’ they were his horses” (408). After he bestrides his chosen “beast of burden,”
The man [sinks] upon his breast, [recovers], [flings] the small boy fiercely to the ground as an unbroken colt might have done, then [turns] upon him a face that [lacks] a lower jaw – from the upper teeth to the throat [is] a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone. The unnatural prominence of nose, the absence of chin, the fierce eyes, [gives] this man the appearance of a great bird of prey crimsoned in throat and breast by the blood of its quarry. …show more content…
As he emerges from the forest, the child discovers the source of the light, “the blazing ruin of a dwelling. Desolation everywhere. In all the wide glare bit a living thing was visible” (409). At this point, though, the child has not grasped the true root of the blaze, and “[dances] with glee” (409) around the flames, and “[runs] about collecting fuel” (409) to encourage the inferno. Suddenly, “he [recognizes] the blazing building as his own home” (409), and the true awfulness of what has occurred there begins to dawn on his young mind. Ultimately, he finds “the dead body of a woman” (410), who he recognizes as his mother – a horrible experience for the child. But the reader’s horror continues as Bierce details the scene even more graphically: “The greater part of the forehead [is] torn away, and from the jagged hole the brain [protrudes], overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles – the work of a shell!” (410). With that, Bierce forces us to simultaneously experience the child’s awful realization that he has lost all, while we visualize the butchery of an authentic wartime