The Spectacle of Violence in “Chickamauga” as an Analysis of Human Society Stephen Andrew Fields College

Violence as a spectacle to be viewed by others for entertainment is a part of human history that can be seen in various times and societies, whether it be the Roman gladiator games where people fought to the death or the less extreme violent sports of today such as boxing, thus indicating it is ingrained into our human nature. One need not look further for evidence to see this trend than in the popularization of first-person-shooter video games or violent action movies in modern culture. This pattern of the human psyche is no less apparent in our views of warfare, which even today, for those who have not really experienced its horrors first hand, is romanticized through its virtual counterparts. Such a viewpoint towards violence has always created a distortion of truth which shields those with no experience from its reality, possibly so that it can ultimately be accomplished by members of a society with less hesitation when needed for the “greater good”.

In Ambrose Bierce’s short story “Chickamauga”, he initially represents a romantic view of war in the limited focal viewpoint of the mute and deaf child. The fact that the child is mute and deaf symbolizes two aspects of human society in relation to violence as a spectacle. His...