Discussion 3: Ghosts, Madmen & The Invisible

Please choose at least TWO of the stories we read this week to discuss and one or more of the questions that apply to those stories.

“The Horla” vs. “The Damned Thing”

Guy de Maupassant’s “The Horla” is published approximately six years before Bierce’s work, “The Damned Thing,” and many scholars see the influence of one on the other. Discuss what aspects of Maupassant’s work you see reflected in Bierce’s story (consider conflict, character, setting, themes, etc.)

Hope–a Bad Thing?

“Damned Thing”–Non-Linear Storytelling

Readers never meet the “damned thing” in Bierce’s story. Instead, we hear evidence from William Harker who was visiting Hugh Morgan, the deceased, and diary entries from Morgan himself who encountered the “thing”. Furthermore, the height of the conflict, Morgan’s death, takes place midway through the story, and then readers return to the Inquest and then we hear from Morgan himself. Discuss this approach to storytelling–is it effective? Why or why not?

“The Horla”–What is this?

Reading through the story, one might believe it is a straightforward story about a cryptozoological creature. Or one might believe that the story is a ghost story. Some critics have suggested that it may be more about the final actions of the narrator and the evolution of purity to evil (everything evil starts out pure?) Others have suggested that the “Horla” is symbolic of disease and infection which De Maupassant suffered from much of his life (syphilis). What exactly is “The Horla”? Is this story really a ghost story? a story of cryptozoology? or something else?