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Sarah RodriguezMr. Tom MurphyEnglish 2333.00125 February 2010

The Naturalism & Realism of Ambrose Bierce

Realism is a literary technique that represents circumstances as they really are, making

the surroundings and characters believable. Naturalism stems from realism but differs in how it

analyzes reality from a natural standpoint through subjects like heredity and the environment.

Ambrose Bierce, in his book, The Civil War Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce uses both to depict

the true nature of war. In one of his short stories, “Chickamauga” Bierce provides a real and

natural description of war from the mindset of a child.

In “Chickamauga,” realism is used greatly throughout the story, describing some of boy’s

encounters with war in explicit detail. In the first example, the boy climbs on one of the injured

soldiers in an attempt to ride him. To describe the results of the boy’s actions, Bierce writes,

“The man sank upon his breast, recovered, flung the small boy fiercely to the ground as an

unbroken colt might have done, then turned upon him 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 splinters of

bone” (56). The importance of this quote is that it presents itself as the villain in the child’s

fantasy. It’s teaching the boy that everything in life is not a game and there are times when you

have to be serious.

The second example of realism is when the young boy returns home to find his house

burning and mother dead:

There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a

woman—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

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blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole

the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with

clusters of crimson bubbles—the work of a shell (58).

The importance of this quote is how displays the carnage of war without sugarcoating it

in the presence of a child, showing him the While realism graphically details the boy’s horrific

experiences; naturalism is also used to put a spotlight on how nature and heredity have brought

the boy to this point in time.

The first example of naturalism is used, emphasizing the boy’s lineage and destiny to

discover and conquer. “From the cradle of its race it [the child’s spirit] had conquered its way

through two continents and passing a great sea has penetrated a third, there to be born to war and

dominion as a heritage.” (53). The importance of this quote is that it is putting an emphasis on

the boy’s genealogy and how this experience will allow the natural plan for his life to take route.

The second example of naturalism is used when the boy first discovers the wounded

soldiers crawling in the woods and how nature plays a role in highlighting this event. To describe

this, Bierce writes, “It [the red light] struck the creeping figures and gave them monstrous

shadows, which caricatured their movements on the lit grass. It fell upon their faces, touching

their whiteness with a ruddy tinge, accentuating the stains with which so many of them were

freaked and maculated” (56). The importance of this quote is how it uses nature itself, the basis

of naturalism, to add drama and suspense to the boy’s encounter with the soldiers.

So as you can see both reality and nature are used throughout the story to really bring the

boy’s adventure to life. While it is not an everyday children’s adventure, it really does make you

change your perspective of war when you experience it through innocent eyes of a child.

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Work Cited

Ambrose, Bierce,. The Civil War Short Stories of Ambrose Bierce. Lincoln: University of

Nebraska, 1988. Print.