Term Paper on "Ambrose Bierce Facts About Bierce's Life"

/>The most encountered theme of the supernatural stories is that of the haunting by a ghost. In fact, Bierce is considered by many people who don't know his entire work, only a ghost story writer. In his supernatural stories the "haunting" is determined by specific reasons, under mysterious circumstances. Of these, one of the well-known and often used is the ghostly revenge motif, by death or other justification, and was perhaps best handled in "An Arrest," "Two Military Executives," and the widely anthologized "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot." Another type of ghost story produces apparitions who attempt to warn someone of danger, best seen in "A Diagnosis of Death," "The Stranger," and, perhaps, "A Wireless Message."

Another theme emphasized in many of these stories, regards the continuance beyond death, either because of an unsatisfied motivation or because of an unattained goal in life -the type was adopted also by Algernon Blackwood in his brilliant "The Deferred Appointment." This motif may be related to an event recorded by Charles Fort, the famous investigator of supernatural phenomena. In 1888 a certain Dr. Wescott had arranged to meet Rev. Leman in a reading room of the British Museum. Dr. Wescott was seen by five persons when he entered the room, but they didn't see him out. When the Reverend arrived, he was told that Wescott awaited him, but the reading room was empty. The strange thing is that Wescott never been to the museum, he was home lying ill in his bed. The event reached Bierce and influenced such stories as "The Thing at Nolan," "A Jug of Sirup," and "The Isle of Pines."

From the supernatural category there are three stories, regarded as the best know. They manage to shock through their composition combining reversed situations with elements that don't submit to the natural laws. These are "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "The Boarded Window," and "A Horseman in the Sky." The first story was effectively adapted by the Frenchman Robert Enrico and broadcast in America on the popular Twilight Zone television program of Rod Serling, winning the Cannes Film Festival in 1962.

II The non-supernatural stories

The non-supernatural stories are a group of stories which describe scenes of the Civil War. "The Mocking Bird" and "The Story of a Conscience," are tow of them. These are the only ones which depict Bierce in another light -close to the real world, human and almost sympathetic. Another, "The Major's Tale," is characterized by humor. Two final stories, "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" and "Haita the Shepherd," are Bierce's only fantasies and contain elements later assumed by developers as the so-called Cthulhu Mythos.

III The Devil's Dictionary

Another work considered Bierce master piece is the well-known "Devil's Dictionary." "The Devil's Dictionary" is one of the greatest works of satire of the 19th century. The words are explained from a certain point-of-view, which focuses on hypocrisy and political double -talk. From the definition given by Bierce himself about it, a dictionary can be seen as "A malevolent literary device for cramping the growth of a language and making it hard and inelastic. This dictionary, however, is a most useful work."

Bierce was esteemed a master of "pure" English by his contemporaries. Everything written by him was notable for its judicious wording and economy of style. He used with mastery a variety of literary genres, and he also published several volumes of poetry and verse. His "Fantastic Fables" anticipated the ironic style of grotesquerie that turned into a genre in the 20th century.

3. Bierce inspired by his predecessors who helped him consolidate his status as a writer

The critics observe in Ambrose Bierce's short fiction an ingenious art scattered with subtle elements of the unnatural world and with a great preference for detail (as the Balzacian style) E.J. Hopkins has noticed that many of his horror tales are less than 3000 words in length; several are less than 1000. Bierce himself recommended that, in successful writing, each word should do the work of four. Such measures are more appropriated for a journalist, and Bierce knew better how to apply them because he was also engaged in this work.

The plot plays a major role in every story, in the prejudice of the mood, which doesn't receive much attention (except in the two fantasies). Concerning the macabre, in Bierce writing, there are many aspects also found in the work of other masters of this esthetic gender such as Poe, Lovecraft, and Clark Ashton Smith. Lovecraft, in his celebrated essay Supernatural Horror in Literature and in several of his published letters, favors the plot and sustains that it is more important than the mood. On the other hand Poe is famous for the detailed studies of feelings and moods (e.g., "The Fall of the House of Usher"). These are representative and obligatory elements encountered in his writings. Smith, the least known of the writers here named accentuates the descriptions and succeeds in creating terrifying and alien moods (e.g., "Xeethra").

Bierce was often compared with Poe and it has been said that he "followed Poe in most of his stories" but was "less literary and more observant." This is true considering the complexity of Poe's sentence structures compared to the great detail so succinctly presented in such Bierce pieces as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." H.L. Mencken, one of Bierce's most successful and well-known understudies, wrote that Bierce's "own style was extraordinarily tight and unresilient, and his fear of rhetoric often took all the life out of his works."

4. Bierce's work -influenced and defined the work of contemporary writers

Bierce managed to create an outstanding style of his writing. For this matter he received a place in the history of the weird tale being consecrated for this gender. As Bleiler declared, he took Poe's example in transporting Gothic and Victorian ghost stories to the mind area, discovering in the human psyche "the ultimate source of horror." His contributions were considerable, influencing different writers as Blackwood, Arthur Machen, M.R. James, W.C. Morrow, Robert W. Chambers, Lord Dunsany, and Lovecraft; and from these writers the row continued until it got to the modern writers of the weird as Carl Jacobi, Charles Beaumont, Rod Serling, among many others. In spite of that his total influence can hardly be counted because in his era the horror tale was developing very fast, but was still at the beginning. Nowadays the imagination doesn't have limits. The human mind can contrive spectacular and shocking thinks that have the great power to impress the public. But Bierce contribution to literature has its importance, as well as his satanic skill.

A http: The horror writer H.P. Lovecraft later incorporated these into his own work, as did other authors who later extended Lovecraft's characters and themes, collectively creating the Cthulhu Mythos.

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Bierce stories represented a great source of inspiration for the movie industry "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" was preferred as the main subject. A silent film version was made in the 1920s. A French version called "La Riviera du Hibou," directed by Robert Enrico, was released in 1962. This is a black and white film, faithfully recounting the original narrative using voice-over. Another version, directed by Brian James Egan, was released in 2005. The 1962 film was also used for an episode of the television series The Twilight Zone: " An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." A copy of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" appeared in the ABC television series Lost (" The Long Con," airdate February 8, 2006).

Bierce's disappearance and… READ MORE