How Does Bierce Use Imagery In Chickamauga

In the short story of Ambrose Bierce’s “Chickamauga,” the author uses imagery to contrast a child’s innocent immagination to the actual horrors of warfare. Bierce first conveys the picture by painting soldiers “singularly white… and gouted with red” as the child is reminded of “painted clowns” when he spots them. This is used to explain that the child thinks of the gruesomely faced soldiers as a source of entertainment for him. Furthermore, the innocence of the boy creates a disturbing atmosphere to the readers as he continues to play and ride on them. After the encounter, the child is then seen crossing “water gleamed with dashes of red” while he approaches a “blazing ruin of a dwelling.” The author uses this to persist the attitude of the
young boy’s naivety as he is unaware that a war is happening in front of his eyes. Consequently, the blazing dwelling was the child’s own house; he cries in despair as the image of his “white face… full of clotted blood” mother is lifeless. Bierce conveys the frightful image to bring the boy into the reality of war and loss. As the author finishes the story with a horrid ending, he explained the true terrors of warfare with imagery as children are innocently unaware of the true violent nature of war.