Horror and Suspense in Bierces Work Essay -- Ambrose Bierce Short Sto

Horror and Suspense in Bierce's Work A novel is divided into different chapters and usually has different plots to focus on. In a novel there are lots of characters and the time scale is constantly changing throughout. Because there is more than one theme and there are different messages coming across of combined themes, makes the novel denser and more complicated to understand and to take in all the description. Ambrose Bierce wrote a lot of short stories and some we have studied and analysed. In a short story there is usually only one plot and the event usually carries on in the same setting. There are usually a couple of characters and one hidden message which makes the short stories more to the point and very direct. As I was analysing the short stories by Bierce, I realised that most of the characters in them were male and most of the stories contained physicians. Looking over Bierce’s background I was able to see that Bierce was brought up in a male dominated area where women were secondary characters. I assume this is why Bierce’s main characters are male and the female characters only play a secondary part in the setting. He had a son who committed suicide and a son who drank himself to death. I think this is why Bierce put physicians in most of his stories. The physicians don’t know when the victims of the stories are about to die, so maybe Bierce could relate to these because no physician could warn him about his sons dying. Throughout Bierce’s stories he has a good use of horror and suspense. He does this by being very concise and to the point. He also makes more impact on us as he uses pathetic thalacy. He does this by describing the weather in such a way that reflects on the mood o... ...he misery of others.’ This ties in with us laughing at the misery of Henry Armstrong. Others find it horrifying as they would be terrified of being buried alive and in those days it was quite common for medical students to dig up the corpses. This also ties in with Bierce’s definition of a grave, which I also found in ‘The Devil’s Dictionary.’ A grave is a place in which the dead are laid to await the coming of the medical student.’ Reading these stories of Bierce’s I found to be very interesting and thoroughly enjoyed. I think it is clear that Bierce was trying to scare a lot of people and effectively did as the description, the language used, the mixed feelings it sends out and the context of his writing creates a lot of horror and suspense. Some may say that Bierce is sick others say that he is very intelligent. Bierce- brilliant or disturbed?