A Tough Tussle
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"A Tough Tussle" is a short story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer
Plot summary
The story is set in the
Byring realizes shortly that he is in the presence of what he assumes to be a dead body. Though Byring has proven himself in war, he is utterly disgusted by the presence of a corpse. He realizes that he has to sit with the dead body and this leads him to contemplate where the repulsion towards the dead comes from.
As the moonlight and clouds shift, Byring realizes the body belongs to a Confederate soldier. The twisted repose of the body further discomforts him and he stands to move but then changes his mind for fear of being perceived as weak. He doesn't leave but without conscious thought, finds himself standing in an offensive position ready to strike, which makes him laugh.
Byring then begins to see (or believes he sees) the corpse moving, but before anything more can happen, a gunshot rings out which brings him out of his mind. The fighting starts and continues into the early morning.
The next day, a Federal captain is exploring the damage and comes across two bodies, Byring and a dead Confederate soldier. It is clear that Byring inflicted wounds upon the enemy but died of a sword wound to the heart. However, the sword was Byring's own and the Confederate soldier's body had long been dead.
Analysis
The "tough tussle" of the title is, ironically, the one with a dead body, or rather, the young officer's struggle with himself, with his irrational fear of death and dead bodies. The story presents this "mad struggle with a corpse" as a symptom of
As Byring's generalized anxiety gradually becomes fixated on the corpse, the young officer envisions the dead body as animate and attacks it.[3] According to Sharon Talley, "Bierce anticipates current psychological thinking in his appreciation of the incapacitating consequences of war trauma on the human psyche... that can lead individuals to choose suicide as a solution when anxiety becomes overwhelming".[3]
References
- ^ ""A Tough Tussle"". Archived from the original on 2015-08-22. Retrieved 2016-03-20.
- ISBN 9781317006886. P. 182.
- ^ a b Talley, Sharon. Ambrose Bierce and the Dance of Death. University of Tennessee Press, 2009. P. 99-100.