“What May Happen in a Field of Wild Oats”: Ecogothic Retribution in “The Damned Thing”

Abstract

This essay explores the expression of two parallel anxieties in Ambrose Bierce’s 1893 “The Damned Thing.” The work depicts, in non-chronological order, a man’s struggle with and eventual defeat by a mysteriously invisible creature (“the Damned Thing”) that inhabits his Californian homestead. On its surface, the story is markedly ecophobic, and I conclude that Bierce’s intention was to unsettle his readers by suggesting that humankind’s control of the natural world is incomplete at best and nonexistent at worst. However, I find that there is a second, unconscious fear of Native American attack articulated in “The Damned Thing.” I place the work in the historical context of the Modoc War of 1873 and the Ghost Dance revival of 1890, drawing connections between white American anxieties produced by these events and the anxieties experienced by protagonist Hugh Morgan in response to the titular creature. Furthermore, I examine the ways in which Bierce’s use of ecogothic tropes and landscapes—most notably, the field of wild oats in which Morgan meets his demise—simultaneously conceals and reveals a guilt over the recent California genocide. Ultimately, I conclude that “The Damned Thing,” while ecophobic in nature, holds a buried recognition of wrongs done to indigenous North Americans, specifically those of California, and a fearful anticipation of retribution for these wrongs.