Analysis Of Ambrose Bierce's A Horseman In The Sky

In the short story “A Horseman in the Sky” Ambrose Bierce establishes the action of the story during the American Civil War and how the war takes a toll on a family in a dismal situation. The story calls attention to a Federal soldier who goes on to fight the war as a young man in the Union and eventually murders his father in a very crude manner. Bierce points out that this is a capital crime under military law, meriting the death penalty, and also offers the opinion that the man's execution, if he were to be found out and tried, would be just. The young man is careless in his actions and ultimately puts his fellow soldiers lives in serious danger. The Civil War tore many families apart and created such animosity amongst blood relatives that the value of family meant less than what side of the war a soldier was fighting for.
In the beginning Bierce provides a small amount of Druse's history, describing how he came to be in the present situation. Later, the young man Druse announces to his father over breakfast his objective to enlist in the Union army (28). To his father surprise, he responds, "Well, go, sir, and whatever may occur do what you conceive to be your duty. Virginia, to which

you are a traitor, must get on without you" (Bierce 28). The father's obvious anger in his tone and his dwelling on duty and treason show that he is thinking in terms of the code of honor that dominated prewar aristocratic life. With Druse’s intention out on the table, essentially he sets the precedents of the terrible issues that families faced during these arduous times. To add fuel to the fire, his father’s ensuing comment, "Should we both live to the end of the war, we will speak further of the matter" (Bierce 28), might, in other circumstances, be taken as a challenge to a duel at that time; the remark foreshadows the father's later service in the Confederate army and his encounter with his son. Druse's father's admonition may indicate that he considers his son to be selfishly seeking glory at the expense of his real duty to his dying mother.
In a change from the previous not so sober tone of the story, Druse is awakened from his sleep by an angel or demon; the story leaves this point purposefully obscure: "What good or bad angel came in a dream to rouse him from his state of crime, who shall say?" (Bierce 29). After this odd encounter what Druse sees when he awakens is presented through a very detailed description of a man mounted on a horse, sitting on a cliff before him looking down onto the valley (29). Druse eventually realizes that the horseman is in fact a Confederate scout who has discovered the Federal troops laying in ambush. Accordingly, he aims his rifle, intending to shoot the man (30) but instead, Druse waits a moment, and the scout happens to look directly toward him. The emotional effort needed to actually attempt to kill this other human being leaves Druse overcome with shock, making him shake, and nearly making him faint, as his senses start to fail him (30). Nevertheless, his mind is flourishing with a magnitude of emotional and irrational thoughts that are to blame for the outcome of his foolish predicament he has found himself absorbed in.
After a greater moral effort, he seems to draw the strength needed to calm himself in recalling his father's admonition that, even as a traitor to Virginia, he must do what he believed to be his duty. Druse fires upon the man and horse and brings them down from the hills (31). In the final section, a sergeant crawls to him through the underbrush, the sergeant demands to know if there was anyone riding the horse (32). Druse states that there was and reveals for the first time that he recognized him, the man was his own father (32). The descriptive nature of this story shows a real dilemma that Druse is faced with and also gives a great insight into how he is unmoved by committing the murder his own father.
Beyond what Bierce has already captivated in the story, he delivers a tragic motif of love lost between a father and son and how one’s lust for glory destroyed his family.

Bierce’s portrays in “A Horseman in the Sky” is the cruelty and horror of the Civil War, and the plot of the story is a young man’s struggle between patriotism and familial duties. It presents the very hardships that many relatives faced during the Civil War and how one could lose sight of their love of family. Druse’s hesitation before lowering the aim of his rifle to shoot the horse, could just as well have been caused by the fact that every enemy in this war was in some way his family. Ultimately he realizes that no matter at whom he will be aiming, the enemy is and will always be the emblem of his

father.