THE BOARDED WINDOWby-Amborse Bierce

  “The Boarded Window” was first published in the San Francisco Examiner on April 12th, 1891; Bierce made some revisions

before including it in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1892). To briefly summarize this story, a man named Murlock lives alone in the wilderness in a house with a boarded window. The narrator explains that the window was boarded up sometime after Murlock’s unnamed wife died. The narrator goes on to describe the strange events that happened the night after Murlock prepared his wife’s body for the grave. While Murlock

watches over the dead body, a panther enters the cabin. Murlock attempts to shoot the unknown creature in the dark, after which he falls unconscious. Upon awakening the next morning, he discovers a piece of the panther’s ear between the clenched teeth of his dead wife. 

Major Themes in the Story

1. Death

2. Loss and Grief

3. Supernaturalism and Bizarre

4. Magic realism ( a literary or artistic genre where a story which is grounded in reality still manages to contain elements of the fantastical )

Elements of the story

In the story Bierce incorporates purposeful integration as well as a story plot twist in the end. This is what makes the story interesting to the readers. Elements such as irony and diction come together to make the mood of the story. Many readers may even be able to connect with the story personally. Mood is used as a tool to let the reader have a more sophisticated understanding of the story through symbolism. 

Diction (the choice and use of words and phrases in speech or writing)

• Words such as, “deranged, lacerated, and coagulated” really added to how the reader perceives the story. Another example of this is between paragraphs 2 and 5. The narrator is speaking first person throughout these paragraphs, and later switches back to third person for Murlock. Ambrose Bierce purposely does this to make the story more realistic and interesting for the reader. In paragraph 1, Ambrose Bierce uses words like “indigence,” and “penitential.” Words like these give a more negative association instead of just impoverished or regretful. 

IronySituational Irony

• The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal's ear.” This means that Murlock’s wife put up a fight with the panther, also meaning that she regained consciousness. This is situational irony because we all expected Murlock’s wife to be dead in the first place, we also expected the blood to be dried and coagulated, not fresh.Dramatic Irony: The reader could probably assume that after Murlock notices the panther and shoots his gun in paragraphs 11 and 12 that some kind of strange result would occur. We know this, but unconscious Murlock does not. After Murlock wakes up, he was appalled by the sight of his dead wife. 

MoodComposition

• The use of irony and diction help build the mood of the story, while symbolism gives the author a chance to look back and have a deeper understanding of why the author uses diction, irony, and mood. For example, dramatic irony in paragraphs 11 and 12 provided the reader with suspense and apprehension. The irony in paragraph 12 leaves the reader with a cliff-hanger, maximizing their need and curiosity for what is going to happen next. The use of diction in The Boarded Window, words give off more heavy and negative connotations. For example, the word “indigence,” which means seriously impoverished, could easily have just been “poor,” or “in need,” but Ambrose Bierce uses the word "indigence" on purpose. Bierce does this to let the reader enjoy the darkness and eeriness of the story, to set up the mood step by step. After the mood is set, the reader might think back and have a more thorough comprehension of the story by acknowledging the connection between the window and Murlock.

Poor vs. Poor

• Lonesome, gruesome, eerie. Transitioned from a little creepy to horrific and shocking, especially towards the end.In paragraph 1 sentences 2-4, phrases such as, “impelled by some mysterious impulse of their nature,” and “He lived alone in a house of logs surrounded on all sides by the great forest, of whose gloom and silence” lets the reader forebode what kind of story this will be. Using words like “forsaken, and indigence” also adds a negative connotation and a sense of negativity and forlornness. While reading paragraph 12 sentence 2, new emotions such as suspense and apprehension washed over me. When Murlock fired off his gun, there was the possibility that the bullet might not hit its intended target, this added drama to the story. 

Symbolism

• The boarded window itself represents Murlock. In paragraph 3, the tells the reader that he was under a great amount of stress. The passage also tells me that he did not board the windows because of the hatred of light and air, but some other reason such as his wife’s death. Windows are usually the passageway to something, and when it is boarded up, it blocks the entrance to the passageway. In paragraph 2 it says that

• “And none knew why it was so closed; certainly not because of the occupant's dislike of light and air.”

• The boarded window also symbolizes Murlock’s connection to the rest of the world, not nature. Paragraph 1 also shows the reader that Murlock lived a mostly lonesome and isolated life, apart from the expanding city. It said that he lived in an sparsely settled region that had few habitable homes and is largely abandoned.There are poor people in Africa as well as America, it just depends what you call poor.

• In paragraph 7, the we might find the entire paragraph to be strange. Murlock tells himself when he can cry for his dead wife. Normal people cry when they feel emotions such as empathy, or when they suffer emotionally, not when they are told to.. Murlock reacts the way he does, because he has never encountered this kind of grief before .

The wife’s death….??

“The clothing was deranged, the long hair in disorder, the limbs lay anyhow. From the throat, dreadfully lanot yet entirely coagulated. The ribbon with which he had bound the wrists was broken; the hcerated, had issued a pool of blood ands were tightly clenched. Between the teeth was a fragment of the animal’s ear.”

Narrator’s connection to Murlock

• “I suppose it was agreed that he had died from natural causes or I should have been told, and should remember.” 

Essence of Supernaturalism

• , “ventured near enough to the ruined cabin to throw a stone against it, and ran away to avoid the ghost which every well-informed boy thereabout knew haunted the spot.”