iences with the elite of San Francisco. He always hated the way he was brought up and how he was poor as a child. Many of his stories use characters that are opposite of how his childhood in reality was, in order to create a false past. All of his stories used at least one of these aspects (Epstein 87-89)Ambrose Bierce can be considered one the greatest cynics of all time. It is obvious that the events in his life caused him to be the bitter, cynical person we see in his stories. In an article relating to how Ambrose Bierce started the cynical, ironic writing in America, Joseph Epstein says, “If the Civil War may be said to have put the blackening on Bierce’s outlook, his career in journalism supplied the polish (Epstein 86).” Every event in his life, from his troubled youth, to his Civil War experience, led him to the writer he is known as today. ...
