Horseman In The Sky Summary

Selected Stories of Ambrose Bierce | A Horseman in the Sky | Summary

Summary

It is "the fall of the year 1861." A young soldier named Carter Druse is on sentinel or watch duty in the woods and cliffs of western Virginia when he falls asleep. He knows this is an abhorrent dereliction of duty that could lead to dire consequences, but he is lucky enough to not exist discovered past a commanding officer.

As he awakens he sees what he believes to be "an equestrian statue of impressive nobility" at the edge of a cliff. He apace realizes that it is non a statue simply a human on a horse and an enemy combatant whom he sees as a potential threat. Druse is overcome with emotion which causes him to hesitate. He thinks back to the conversation he had with his father before the two men went their separate ways to join unlike armies. His father had advised him that "whatsoever may occur, exercise what y'all excogitate to exist your duty." This gives Druse the courage he needs, only he fires at the human being's horse instead of the man himself. Both human and horse get over the side of the cliff. An officer nearby witnesses the event only believes erroneously that he is seeing a man ride through the air on horseback. Knowing that anybody volition believe him crazy, he tells no one of his feel.

Druse returns to his sentinel duty, and a sergeant approaches him having heard the gunfire. Carter Druse's sergeant asks Druse if he fired a shot. Druse replies in the affirmative and so reveals that a horse went over the cliff. The sergeant asks if anyone was on the equus caballus, and Druse explains that the person on the horse was his father. Carter Druse'south father was the homo seen falling over the cliff with his horse.

Analysis

The Ceremonious War (1861–65) pitted Americans of the Northern states against the Southern states. Those of the North fought for the Wedlock army and those of the Due south for the Confederacy. Carter Druse is from the country of Virginia. At the beginning of the Civil War, Virginia allowed slavery just was a border state between Northward and South. A significant proportion of its population was committed to preserving the U.s.. And then great was this pro-Wedlock feeling that a part of the state of Virginia split off and became W Virginia in 1861 to avoid alignment with the confederacy. Carter Druse is a Virginian who wanted to go along his state together then he enlists with the Wedlock army. His father sees this every bit a traitorous human activity to his state.

Carter Druse's father decides to enlist in the Confederate army which puts him and his son on opposite sides. Such divided family loyalties were common during the American Ceremonious War. Brothers fought against brothers, and soldiers like Carter fought confronting their fathers. Bierce'south portrayal of the actual combat between begetter and son speaks to this partition in the nation during the Civil War.

Carter Druse struggles with firing on this particular man, but Bierce keeps the reader in the nighttime every bit to precisely why. This is to create suspense and build-upward to the big reveal at the stop of the story. Druse is characterized equally a thoughtful boyfriend not willing to take a human life without thorough consideration. It is a bitter irony that his father'south own words are what encourage him to accept the activeness he knows he must have in war-time which is killing his enemy. In this instance his enemy is also his father.

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