Нравственные коллизии и трагическая вина в новеллах Амброза Бирса о Гражданской войне

Abstract

Moral conflicts and tragic guilt in Ambrose Bierce’s short stories about the Civil War

The author examines motifs, genre frames and models of Ambrose Bierce’s short stories. The main topic of this article is the investigation of tragic conflicts on a material of the best tales of the writer (An Occurrence on the Owl Greek Bridge, A Mocking-bird, A Resumed Identity etc.). Selection of the short stories is based upon the author’s treatment of their characters running into the Civil War. These characters are all doomed to falling at the end of the novels because Bierce wants to say that any violation of the order dominating at that war time might lead to human downfall, be it man or a woman.