Chickamauga Literary Elements

Horror/War Fiction

A forest during the American Civil War. The appearance of the soldiers suggest it is likely located in the South.

Third-person omniscient, but the child is the main character.

Dark and foreboding. Much of the story is built on anxiety as the child wanders through the woods. The tone finally turns horrifying when the child stumbles upon his burning home.

The protagonist is the child. While not clear, it appears the enemy soldiers can be considered the antagonists.

The main conflict of the story is the child being lost in the woods. When he eventually finds his way home, he finds it has been destroyed and nobody is there to save him. The child being lost in the woods has destroyed his poor, young life.

When the child discovers his burning home after exiting the forest. He finds the enemy soldiers have burned his home, killed his family, and the narrator reveals the child is also a deaf-mute. The boy finding his mother's corpse is the exact point the story reaches the climax.

The father's love for military books and the boy's "sword". The father's situation shows the family is currently engulfed in the American Civil War. While the boy's playing with the wooden sword shows that the war is always close to them. When the boy finally meets real soldiers they are either dead or destroying his home. Just as the boy can not "curb the lust for war" in himself, he can not cure the lust for war in others. This lust for war destroys his own home.

The boy's understanding of the fire he sees. At first, he enjoys it and wishes to continue to feed its destruction. That is until he recognizes the fire as his own home. It is only when he understands the destruction does true fear set in. The fire takes on a far more freighting element to him.

Though Bierce never outright describes the Civil War, it is clear the boy's family are slave-owners fighting for the South. The story talks about them as planters, their wealth, and their servants. All of this (and the politics) are beyond the understanding of the boy though. It is only when the reader learns the boy's home has been destroyed that it becomes clear he has become a victim of the conflict.

Bierce pays special attention to the violent imagery of war. There is much to be said about his descriptions of the dead soldiers, the burning of the house, and the body of the woman shot dead. All of the horrifying images shows Bierce's own cynical attitude toward war. It is the human cost of the conflict his descriptions attempt to show. The deaf-mute boy—who is guilty of nothing—has become a victim of the violence. His entire family has become but a causality of war.

The paradox of war which had established the child's home and way of life, but also destroyed it. The story opens with describing how it was the pursuit of war which allowed the boy's family to establish such a way of life in America. The argument is that war is a natural element of humanity. The paradox is the fact it is war which also destroys the boy's home. He has become a victim of the exact thing that established his ancestors. The boy is a victim to war's own arbitrary nature.

The boy being lost in the forest and the "loss" of his own home. As the boy is wandering lost in the forest, his home is being destroyed in the war. It is only when he finds the dead bodies in the woods can the reader begin to guess that. The wooden sword is a symbol of how this war emerges from the woods to consume him. By casting the wooden sword into the flames burning his own home, the boy connects the loss of the forest and loss of him. Both the innocence of the forest and innocence of home are destroyed in the flames.

Many of the symbols in Bierce's short story become representative of larger themes of the Civil War. The boy's wooden sword represents the conflict itself and his ignorance towards it. His being lost in the forest may represent the uncertain future of the war. The family servants then (as exploited slaves) also represent the abuses suffered before and during the war. Then, finally, the destruction of the boy's home represents the destruction of the South. The Union troops destroy both the boy's home and way of life. All the issues of which he has always been blind to.

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