Deaf Members and Nonmembers

Uncomprehending, a young boy wanders through a Civil War battlefield in an 1891 short story by Ambrose Bierce (1891/1971). The boy witnesses, but does not understand, the blood and injuries of the men scattered on the ground. He hears neither the guns nor the shouts exploding around him. He does not know he is an orphan. He watches, but does not know he is in the midst of a war. Thus, Bierce, one of the United States’ most bitter writers, captured the devastating sense of being present at, but not a part of a scene.