Analysis of Bierce Essay Example
Analysis of Bierce Essay Example

Analysis of Bierce Essay Example

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  • Pages: 5 (1329 words)
  • Published: December 7, 2016
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Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (born June 24, 1842; assumed to have died sometime after December 26, 1913) was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist, and satirist. He wrote the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and compiled a satirical lexicon The Devil's Dictionary. His vehemence as a critic, his motto "Nothing matters", and the sardonic view of human nature that informed his work, all earned him the nickname "Bitter Bierce". Despite his reputation as a searing critic, Bierce was known to encourage younger writers, including poet George Sterling and fiction writer W.

C. Morrow. Bierce employed a distinctive style of writing, especially in his stories. His style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, impossible events and the theme of war. In 1913, Bierc

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e traveled to Mexico to gain first-hand experience of the Mexican Revolution. While traveling with rebel troops, he disappeared without a trace. Bierce married Mary Ellen "Mollie" Day on 25 December 1871. They had three children; two sons, Day (1872–1889) and Leigh (1874–1901), and a daughter, Helen (1875–1940).

Both of Bierce's sons died before he did: Day committed suicide due to depression over a romantic rejection, and Leigh died of pneumonia related to alcoholism. Bierce separated from his wife in 1888 after discovering compromising letters to her from an admirer. They divorced in 1904 and Mollie Day Bierce died the following year. On Bierce's religious views, he was an agnostic. Bierce suffered from lifelong asthma as well as complications from his war wounds. Each chapter in wireless message begins with general description of the scene where William Holt’s action

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is going to take place.

The first scene happened in a little town of central New York In the summer of 1896. The second and last scene happened at his brother’s house. And the third scene happened on the road along the village from evening, in the night at eleven o’clock and twenty-five minutes, standard time until dawn. The tone of A Wireless Message is horror and sad. It can proven by the word in the text like lost, mischance, distressing, lonely, darkness, horror, and soon. And the atmosphere reflected to gloomy. The movement of a plot comes chiefly. The conflict moves to the conflict.

Like in the sentences “They were plainly visible, and the hands indicated the hour of eleven o’clock and twenty-five minutes. At that moment the mysterious illumination suddenly flared to an intense, an almost blinding splendor, flushing the entire sky, extinguishing the stars and throwing the monstrous shadow of himself athwart the landscape. ” That sentences make a movement to the main conflict. And then the resolution happened in this sentence “The sudden darkness was comparative, not absolute, for gradually all objects of his environment became again visible.

In the dawn of the morning Holt found himself entering the village at a point opposite to that at which he had left it. ” A Wireless Message has 3 characters, such as William Holt, Holt’s wife, and Holt’s brother. The main character was William Holt. William Holt was known as hopeless. He had parted with his wife. Because of his trouble, he felt guilty and full of remorse. When he was traversing on a road, he did where he

was going. He had an awkward event. He saw an apparition like the figure of his wife, cladding in her night-clothing and holding to her breast the figure of his child.

He usually did useless action, he just thought about his life and problem. The other character responded to what he did, He thought/felt that it may be assumed - whatever the value of the assumption in connection with what is said to have occurred - that his mind was occupied with reflections on his domestic infelicities and the distressing changes that they had wrought in his life. From it, we also that he did the whole of his time like his life was messed up. He did nothing, just realized what he has done in his life. He lost his hope as he lost his life. He felt guilty and full of remorse from what happened to him.

He had trouble which made his life like his life was messed up. The whole of his mind was about his trouble, his remorseful. He didn’t know what he must do. He always did remorse. And, Holt’s brother was kind and friendly fellow. He cared about Holt’s life. In this short story, the author uses many figures of speech. He mostly uses parallelism, and apostrophe. Apostrophe is a figure of speech by which a person - generally absent or dead - or personified abstract idea is addressed: The writer mostly uses Apostrophe because he tried to create pictures (figures) using words (speech).

An author can create a special effect or an image through the unordinary words. The author’s words are successful, and the

reader will create or paint a picture in his mind of the scene the author describes. In this short story, he tries to figurate a figure of wife with her son, like in this sentence, In that unearthly illumination he saw near him, but apparently in the air at a considerable elevation, the figure of his wife, clad in her night-clothing and holding to her breast the figure of his child.

The author shows that a figure of mother is important. It also makes the short story interesting. And this story also parallelism. It makes the event or sentences are connected. Like in this sentence, “At that moment the mysterious illumination suddenly flared to an intense, an almost blinding splendor, flushing the entire sky, extinguishing the stars and throwing the monstrous shadow of himself athwart the landscape. ” The short story has many or different theme in each story.

The central theme is that “ Don’t be focused of the big mistakes that we have done, because there are many choice to resolve them, life must go on. ” The theme of this work is invisible. It will be difficult to look for it. It depends on how we understand it. The Critical Paper of A Wireless Message Here’s my analysis of A Wireless Message: First, Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce lives in tragic life. Both of Bierce's sons died before he did: Day committed suicide due to depression over a romantic rejection, and Leigh died of pneumonia related to alcoholism.

Bierce separated from his wife in after discovering compromising letters to her from an admirer. They divorced and Mollie Day Bierce died the

following year. Bierce is atheist. Second, I think that Bierce writes this short story (A Wireless Message) based on his experience. This story explains about gloomy guy which has serious trouble. He parted with his wife. He falls into deep remorse. Bierce also put in his despair emotion in this story. So, the reader can know what the author feel is. The story is difficult, they use many figures of speech.

Such as, the sentences use many parallelism, and literally word. So, it will make a difficulty to beginner to understand it. But that makes the story is unique through unpredictable moment/event. So, it could be factors that make the readers are excited and keep reading. In the other short story, Bierce makes all of his short stories into horror/sadness. In the short story A Wireless Message, there is mysterious thing, such as when the illumination of figures mother with her son appears, and his wife appears at an upper window with her child in her arms.

Then she suddenly disappears. Bierce usually uses semicolon in each short stories. Bierce also often uses long sentences using comma (,), semicolon (;), and stripe (-) in writing. His style often embraces an abrupt beginning, dark imagery, vague references to time, limited descriptions, impossible events and the theme of death. They can be proven in some short stories that he has written, such as A wireless Message, A Diagnosis of Death, Stanley Fleming’s Hallucination, and soon The writing has memorable

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