The dark side of the frontier: On the problematics of Ambrose Bierce’s “gothic” tales

One of the most insightful chroniclers of the frontier and of the Civil War, Ambrose Bierce had reached the stage of creative maturity at a time when freeland development in America was coming to an end, and national identity along with strong federal institutions had been formed. This article explores conflicts resulting, as for Bierce, from the discrepancy between the frontier mindset and new realities of mostly peaceful, settled existence of a consolidated nation, which had newly eliminated most acute external and internal threats. As the study showed, Bierce regards the following mental attitudes of the Wild West as highly conflict-prone: (1) Domination. “Borderland” strengthens the pioneer’s character, teaches him to overcome the resistance of a hostile environment and to assert his civilizational superiority over it. These skills are questioned in “initial” trials, which shape the plot in several tales of “soldiers” and “civilians”. Even in wartime, the downsides of the desire for leadership become apparent: it does not allow the elders to delegate power and the juniors to recognise other’s superiority, it hampers horizontal ties, which are necessary for collaboration. In everyday life, dominant thinking extremely aggravates competition, excludes game conventions and compromises, and provokes family violence. (2) Alienation. The pioneer’s historically motivated hostility towards foreigners degenerates in peacetime into spontaneous xenophobia, into paranoid suspiciousness towards neighbors and relatives. Beyond social ties, alienation sours the colonist’s connection with his new homeland, which is not related to the dust of his forefathers, to his farming practices, or to his religion. As common in American literature, Bierce demonized the “pagan” forest, distrusted idyllic landscapes and even the cultivated land, suspecting that it might hold to its native owners and revolt against the colonisers. (3) Expansionism. The expansionist “instinct” which the colonist inherits from his ancestors becomes senseless because of the the exaustion of arable land. Besides, it comes into conflict with civic duty and family responsibilities. In turn, an abandoned house turns into a locus horrendus in Bierce’s tales, since it instills in the colonist a guilt complex and gets (similar to natural shelters) associated with a “claustrophobic” trap. (4) Progressivism. The messianic aspiration for the future and the insufficient depth of the historical horizon prevented the romanticization of the national past. As a result, the alienated past to which the Gilded Age American was linked both genetically and culturally was demonized and viewed solely in terms of entropy. Bierce considers physical acceleration and mental infantilism to be the costs of rapid advances. On the one hand, semi-nomadic life, saturated with conflicts and changes, accelerates the passage of time, “steals” the middle, mature stage of life from the frontiersman or soldier: Bierce’s protagonists exhaust their life resources before they ripe mentally for home-building, matrimony, fatherhood. On the other hand, the shaky historical foundation and the febrile atmosphere of the Gilded Age prompt the colonist to seek support in idealized, utopian pictures of childhood. Returning home in Bierce’s tales often ends in a mental collapse, caused by the disillusionment with childhood dream and by the strikingly ambivalent semantics of “home”. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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