Anxious Representations of Uncertain Masculinity: The Failed Journey to Self-Understanding in Ambrose Bierce's “The Death of Halpin Frayser”

Abstract

In his 1891 tale “The Death of Halpin Frayser,” Ambrose Bierce presents the crisis of masculine identity through familial tropes of gothic otherness that he connects to specific historical and cultural contexts. As a result, he shows that the psychic dimensions of the impasse he depicts are not just individually but also socially constructed. By using the insights of post-Freudian psychoanalytical theories, and especially the perspectives of Lacan (1977) and Kristeva (1982, 1984), this study will show how the story works to expose the instability of masculine identity through its representation of the Oedipal crisis and its gendered repercussions.

Keywords

Ambrose Bierce “The Death of Halpin Frayser,” masculinity gender identity gothic literature Oedipal crisis death dreams

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bierce

(1892). Black beetles in amber. San Francisco: Western Authors.

Bierce

(1909–1912). The collected works of Ambrose Bierce (12 vols.). New York: Neale.

Bierce

(1995). My day of life. In Grenander

M.E.

(Ed.), Poems of Ambrose Bierce (pp. 127–128). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Bierce

(1946). The death of Halpin Frayser. In The collected writings of Ambrose Bierce (pp. 395–409). Seacaucus: Citadel.

Bierce

(1891, Dec. 19). The death of Halpin Frayser. The Wasp, 7(33), 2–5.

Bierce

(1903). Shapes of clay. San Francisco: Wood.

Bierce

(1946). Visions of the night. In The collected works of Ambrose Bierce (Vol. 10, pp. 115–122). (Original work published 1887)

Bloom

(1973). The anxiety of influence: A theory of poetry. New York: Oxford University Press.

Clinton

, & Silber

(Eds.) (1992). Divided houses: Gender and the Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press.

10.

Davidson

(1984). The experimental fictions of Ambrose Bierce: Structuring the ineffable. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

11.

Grenander

M.E.

(1971). Ambrose Bierce. Boston: Twayne.

12.

Grenander

M.E.

(1995). Introduction. In Grenander

M.E.

(Ed.), Poems of Ambrose Bierce. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

13.

Kimmel

(1996). American manhood: A cultural history. New York: Free Press.

14.

Kristeva

(1982). Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. ( Roudiez

L.S.

, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.

15.

Kristeva

(1984). Revolution in poetic language ( Waller

, Trans.). New York: Columbia University Press.

16.

Lacan

(1977). Ecrits: A Selection. ( Sheridan

, Trans.). New York: Norton.

17.

McLean

R.C.

(1974). The deaths in Ambrose Bierce's “Halpin Frayser.” Papers on Language and Literature, 10, 394–402.

18.

Rubens

P.M.

(1978, March). The gothic foundations of Ambrose Bierce's fiction. Nyctalops, 14, 29–31.

19.

Silber

(1992). Intemperate men, spiteful women, Jefferson Davis. In Clinton

& Silber

(Eds.), Divided houses: Gender and the Civil War (pp. 283–305). New York: Oxford University Press.

20.

Silverman

(1992). Male subjectivity at the margins. New York: Routledge.

21.

Stein

W.B.

(1972). Bierce's “The death of Halpin Frayser”: The poetics of gothic consciousness. ESQ, 18, 115–122.

22.

Whites

(1992). The Civil War as a crisis in gender. In Clinton

& Silber

(Eds.), Divided houses: Gender and the Civil War (pp. 3–21). New York: Oxford University Press.

23.

Wyatt-Brown

(1982). Southern honor: Ethics and behavior in the Old South. New York: Oxford University Press.