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Edgar Allan Poe's Influence On Civil War

1206 Words5 Pages

Nicole Zajac
Mrs. Pinto
Early American Literature A7/8
29 March 2018
The Distortion of Reality in the Civil War
A small deaf child laughs at the bloodied faces of wounded soldiers, unable to comprehend the magnitude of the horrific battle scene before him. A foolish Confederate who has tried to burn the Union Bridge, awaits his hanging. These scenes are drawn from the short stories of Ambrose Bierce, a famous writer and former Union soldier. His short stories reveal the horrific atrocities of war. Contrary to other Civil War writers, Bierce does not romanticize the war and instead proceeds to write of the war realistically. Bierce’s cynical works, many of which contained harsh criticisms of pro-war propagandists, earned him the famous nickname …show more content…

For most of his life, Bierce found joy in reading from his father's wide collection of stories. Some of the stories included in this wide variety included Edgar Allan Poe’s works. Reading this literature may have contributed to the genre of literature that Bierce wrote later on in his life, post- Civil War. Growing up, Ambrose Bierce was influenced primarily by his uncle, General Lucius Verus Bierce who was an American general during the Civil War. When Ambrose left home in Indiana at the age of fifteen to live with his uncle, he observed his uncle’s idealism, public speaking skills and social activism. (Warren) Eventually this led him to the decision of enrolling in the Kentucky Military Institute. However, his studies were cut shortly after, as the Civil War broke out. On April 19 1861, Bierce dropped out of school and was one the first people to enlist in the Ninth Regiment of the Indiana Volunteers, a group of soldiers that fought alongside the Union in the Civil War. …show more content…

Ambrose Bierce explains the water below Farquhar’s feet with such extreme detail that one can imagine the “'humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, [and] the strokes of the water-spiders' legs” (Bierce) reading the story. Using this technique helps the reader further focus and comprehend the message of the short story, the cruel Civil War is romanticized. In addition to the imagery, Ambrose Bierce’s well known short story also includes a significant theme of the contrast of a soldier’s glory with the reality of war. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Farquhar enters a dream-like delusion of escaping the bullets and his unavoidable hanging, only to be suddenly awakened by the reality of the cruel situation- he was going to be hanged. Bierce creates Peyton Farquhar as a character whose romantic ideals blind him from the harsh truth of war, and therefore contributes to the overall theme contrasting the idealistic mindset of soldiers and the gruesome reality of

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