The features of the gothic tradition interpretation in short stories by Ambrose Bierce

The article deals with the late short stories by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914?). The aim of this work is to reveal the features of the Gothic tradition interpretation in the writer’s short stories, created at the end of the 19th century. The research is based on the second part of the collection “Tales of Soldiers and Civilians” (1891) and the collection “Can Such Things Be?” (1893). It is established that the writer develops most common ideas of Gothic literature, however, there is an attempt to rethink some of them. Bierce’s stories are focused on the examination of the borderline between the human mind and the world. The writer is more centered on the fact that human perception is limited rather than on functioning of consciousness and mind, and fear that his characters experience indicates that that they face another reality, though many of them can’t accept it. Bierce states that human beings, despite their rationality and knowledge of science, unable to understand the world around them. Besides, by indicating on the existence of paranormal, he confronts the idea of the line that divide the world of the living and the world of the dead, the natural and the supernatural world. In his prose, we can find a view on the late 19th century human, whose general traits, from Bierce’s point of view, are skepticism, arrogance, and natural inclination to do evil. One of the features of Bierce’s Gothic stories is that the root of evil is not supernatural forces, but human nature. The conclusion is drawn that the writer didn’t aim to use the whole set of devices traditional to Gothic fiction, however, he used many of them and made them serve his creative purpose, which we can see on the different levels of the text organization. The writer didn’t want to just follow the Gothic canon; he used gothic elements in his prose, combining them with the elements of realist poetics to express his views on the world and humanity.