Essay Questions

What part of his background makes Bierce uniquely qualified to have written this story?

Bierce enlisted to fight for the Union army in 1861—the same year in which the story is set. In addition, to serving in the infantry in many battlefield engagements—including the famous Battle of Shiloh—Bierce would later receive a commission to work as a topographical engineer. This meant that he was charged with creating maps for the army of regions in which fighting would occur. One of the areas that Bierce helped to map was the western Virginia mountains and valleys which receive extensive, precise and detailed description in the first section of the story.

How is the only killing in this war story a metaphor for the war itself?

Many writers—including Bierce himself—wrote Civil War stories that were much bloodier and overwhelmed with battlefield casualties than this tale, but few of those killings speak metaphorically to the consequences of the war so directly. Indeed, this story is hardly unique even its portrayal of the death of one family members on one side the conflict as the hands of another family wearing the opposite uniform. This is not a case of brother killing brother, however, as is often the case. Surely, Bierce could have chose to go more stereotypical route of framing the division the Civil War caused within families within the more traditional sibling motif, so it stands to reason there was specificity in his decision to frame the conflict as father versus son. Since it is the son who kills the father, the metaphorical implication is allegorical in which Carter’s father stands for the abomination of a conflicted United States forever divided over the issue of the slavery. His death as the hands of his son becomes a metaphor for the Union’s victory over the Confederacy killing that version of the country forever.

What contextual clues are available in the text to form an opinion of the personality of Carter Druse?

Carter is the only character in the story about whom a rational character profile could possibly be compiled as there is simply not enough information about any other, including Carter’s father. It is known that he is the only child from a wealthy family who knew leisure and cultivation. This life of leisure may be the element which secured his position as a sentry familiar with the surrounding wilderness; perhaps he had spent much time exploring those cliffs and valleys. Carter’s first response to thinking he is seeing a statue of a man on a horse is a “keen artistic delight” which fits with the narrator’s earlier description of his “easy” life cultivating a sense of taste. From these details one can presume the possibility that his life freed from the daily drudgery of hard work instilled in a more rebellious attitude than might have developed from spending more time doing physical labor and this could be what stimulates his decision to defy his father and enlist in the Union army against his home state in the Confederacy.