20 pages • 40 minutes read
Ambrose BierceChickamauga
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1984A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Why do you think that the author chose to leave the child unnamed? How does it make you see the boy?
Why do you think that the boy, after playing imaginary war games by himself, is suddenly terrified by the sight of a rabbit? What do you think that this says about him?
What do you understand of the hero’s background, and how it has formed his outlook? What are some things that his background has not prepared him for?
The boy at first believes that the wounded soldiers crawling out of the forest are animals, and only gradually realizes that they are men. How does his view of them affect the reader's our own view of them?
What do you think about the fact that the boy, who is so oriented towards fighting and all things military, sleeps through a nearby battle while he is lost in the woods? What does this inaction imply?
Why do you think that the boy is so drawn towards the fire, at the end of the story, and leads his troops towards it?
Do you think that the boy comes to a new understanding of war, by the story’s end? What do you think that this understanding consists of?
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By Ambrose Bierce
