morning when the too doctors arrived to check on the man they found the building surrounded by police. They quickly overheard that someone had been murdered there. The third doctor had pretended to be dead to scare the man in the dark. When the doctors heard this they left the country so that no blame could be placed on them. They thought that the man had killed the doctor because he was so scared (Bierce 132-140).The story continues seven years later in New York with same two doctors in central park. They are talking and wondering about what had happened to the man that had taken the bet years before. A man then comes up to them knowing their names and tells them that he was the doctor they had know years before. They demand to know what happened that night. The other doctor then tells them that night, he could tell that the man was getting very scared so he decided to get up and touch him to frighten him more. When he did this the man, so paralyzed by fear, died. The doctor then switched places with the man and put on his clothes. He had been holding this secret for seven years and the doctors were the only people he had told (Bierce 141-142).This story examines man’s perception of death. People are so afraid of death that they can die by just being exposed to it. This story shows Bierce’s dark view on the human race and how people can be so twisted that they would bet on things that can be harmful to another person. Bierce’s stories often have the aspect of death and pessimism as the main point. The plot is centered around how man perceives death and how most people are afraid of it.The most common thread between all of Bierce’s stories is the aspect of death and the hopelessness of life. In every story that he wrote there was some form of irony, allusion to death, or cynical undertone. He had a tendency to side with the culture of the South because of the rich aristocracies and also his exper...
