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Post by wireman on Feb 23, 2022 13:24:50 GMT
Today, we will discuss Chickamauga by Ambrose Bierce
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Post by spideyman on Feb 23, 2022 15:44:28 GMT
Found this article while researching the title. Some background info.......
Chickamauga is Cherokee for “bad water,” the name a branch of the tribe gave to the creek alongside which they lived in the northwest corner of Georgia when they were decimated by an outbreak of smallpox. Subsequent historians dubbed Chickamauga Creek the “River of Death” (Morris 56); the Civil War’s Battle of Chickamauga on September 19–20, 1863, was “the largest battle in the western theater of operations and the bloodiest two-day encounter of the entire war” (Morris 61), with Union and Confederate casualties estimated at 16,000 and 20,000, respectively (McPherson 674–675).
Ambrose Bierce (born 1842), an Indiana farm boy who had enlisted on the Union side in 1861, took part in this battle, and in his story “Chickamauga” (1889) he not only accurately describes the tactical military aspects of the terrain but also captures the horrors of war in gruesome detail. Bierce accomplishes this with the expertise he had gained as an advance scout and topographical engineer (cf. “A Little of Chickamauga” [1898], Collected Works I, 275) and with the dual-narrative perspective he uses in having an adult tell the story of a six-year-old farm boy’s first and shattering experience of war.
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Post by wireman on Feb 23, 2022 15:49:37 GMT
This is a superb but bleak civil war story. The way that Bierce combined the reality of war with the child's fantasy of war is a powerful image. It doesn't say in the story but I assumed the dead lady at the end is his mother.
There were some gruesome descriptions in this story. Much more gruesome than most stories from this time period.
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Post by wireman on Feb 23, 2022 15:55:16 GMT
I think it was an interesting choice to have the boy be deaf. While in the woods, his fantasies are not destroyed by the horrific sounds around him.
I was wondering how he slept through that until the reveal at the end.
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Post by cat on Feb 23, 2022 22:18:35 GMT
I was thinking the whole time that the people the boy saw were ghosts of Civil War soldiers after a battle until he finds his way home at the end. Then I understood it was the battle. It was a very abrupt ending, and a devastating one. I agree the woman was his mother.
Also agree about the gruesome imagery. But some of it was beautiful, too. Here are a few phrases I took note of...
"...still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a companion,..." gave me a feeling of calming down, like holding a stuffed animal close
"Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured their movements on the lit grass."
This one was just very vivid in my mind, I could see the shadows backlit by what we soon find out is fire.
I'm jumping back in, I have missed this. I will probably still try to go back and catch up some but it will take a while. Big hugs!
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Post by wolf on Feb 23, 2022 22:47:52 GMT
I was thinking the whole time that the people the boy saw were ghosts of Civil War soldiers after a battle until he finds his way home at the end. Then I understood it was the battle. It was a very abrupt ending, and a devastating one. I agree the woman was his mother. Also agree about the gruesome imagery. But some of it was beautiful, too. Here are a few phrases I took note of... "...still grasping his toy sword, no longer a weapon but a companion,..." gave me a feeling of calming down, like holding a stuffed animal close "Instead of darkening, the haunted landscape began to brighten. Through the belt of trees beyond the brook shone a strange red light, the trunks and branches of the trees making a black lacework against it. It struck the creeping figures and gave them monstrous shadows, which caricatured their movements on the lit grass." This one was just very vivid in my mind, I could see the shadows backlit by what we soon find out is fire. I'm jumping back in, I have missed this. I will probably still try to go back and catch up some but it will take a while. Big hugs!
Missed your posts. 😊 |
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Post by wireman on Feb 25, 2022 15:13:34 GMT
Does anyone have a suggestion for next week?
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Post by wireman on Feb 25, 2022 21:30:40 GMT
Next Wednesday we will discuss, The Sea Raiders by HG Wells
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