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Situational Irony
Part 2
Explanation and Analysis:
Bierce’s writing style in “A Horseman in the Sky” shifts over the course of the story. In Parts 1 and 4, his style is somewhat journalistic. (Bierce did, in fact, have a career as a journalist before starting to write fiction.) In Part 1, Bierce spends several paragraphs simply describing the topography of the landscape in which Druse is stationed, and, in Part 4, Bierce captures in minimalist language a short conversation between Druse and his sergeant (revealing the plot twist that the horseman is Druse’s father).
In Parts 2 and 3, on the other hand, Bierce’s writing style becomes much more expressive, as he uses imagery and figurative language to capture the inner experiences of both Druse and the wandering officer. Take the following passage, for example, in which Bierce describes Druse waking up after falling asleep in some shrubs:
What good or bad angel came in a dream to rouse him from his state of crime, who shall say? Without a movement, without a sound, in the profound silence and the languor of the late afternoon, some invisible messenger of fate touched with unsealing finger the eyes of his consciousness — whispered into the ear of his spirit the mysterious awakening word which no human lips ever have spoken, no human memory ever has recalled.
The language here is very poetic. Rather than simply writing that Druse woke up from his nap, Bierce explains how an “angel came in a dream to rouse him” and that this “invisible messenger of fate […] whispered into the ear of his spirit.” This more figurative, evocative writing style prepares readers for the mystical and emotional experience that Druse will soon have upon noticing the Confederate horseman in front of him, realizing it's his father, and then killing him.
Related Themes:
