Job 3- Bierce and Irving

By simply looking at the two authors writing styles we could be quick to say they are totally different. Washington Irving was a romanticism/Gothic writer. The romanticism/gothic style emphasizes feelings, it threw logic or reason out the window to instead write based on emotions and intuition. When we read the Short Story “Legend of Sleepy Hollow” we were able to notice those characteristics of Irving’s writing style come out. Ambrose Bierce writings were of the Realism style. He focused on reality and didn’t fluff anything up. Realism is based on events rather than the character’s feelings of those events. It also leaves the interpretation of the story up to the readers. In Romanticism the author basically tells the reader how to feel about the story since they put so much of their own feeling into the story that those feelings often become our own about the story and characters in it. The Realism style comes out dramatically in Ambrose’s short story “An Occurrence at owl Creek Bridge”.  

If we look closely however there are similarities between the two author’s writings. Both men had a satirical side to their writing. It comes out a lot bolder in Bierce’s writings but it is present also in Irving’s. They both insert some humor as well into their stories, even their more serious tales. They both wrote of their experiences. Bierce’s were based on his time in the Civil War and Irving wrote on his travels in America. They are also known as two of the greatest American Authors.