Chickamauga Bierce Summary

In a civilization aimed at peace and freedom in life, one may find it astonishing to see how prominent war has been in the history of the human race. War, in its simplest form, is fighting- a practice sustained by humans for centuries. In today's society, fighting is glamorized and celebrated, everywhere from the Call of Duty games that children play to the MMA and boxing leagues of the world. However, war and fighting are only glamorized by the people who have not truly experienced them- a point well illustrated by author Ambrose Bierce. In his story "Chickamauga", Ambrose Bierce creates tension between the beliefs of the narrator and of the child while including vital symbols to display how the glamorization of war and fighting does not hold
For the boy, war is something of excitement and playfulness. In his play, the boy proudly draws his wooden sword, swinging it around, jumping over rocks, and fighting imaginary foes- nothing unexpected in regards to a young boy. However, in the midst of the boy's frolicsome behavior, the narrator displays a more condescending and ridiculing tone. The narrator mocks the boy's sword, a symbol of war so poorly made that "his father would have hardly known it for what it was"(Bierce 1). The narrator also emphasizes the boy's "small" breast thus placing the boy on a lower level in size and, consequently, maturity than the narrator (Bierce 1). Furthermore, the narrator highlights the unrealistic qualities in the boy's "war" through stressing the foes' inhuman qualities such as flying across streams with "illogical ease"(Bierce 1). The idea in all of this is to display that the narrator acknowledges the boy's attempt in recreating a war but does not respect it because, to a war-experienced narrator, it does not contain any of the true qualities of war; it only contains the false notions of war which are despised of by the