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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.