THE DEEP ONES: "The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Ambrose Bierce

"The Death of Halpin Frayser" by Ambrose Bierce

Discussion begins July 20, 2022.

First published in the December 19, 1891 issue of The Wave.



BIBLIOGRAPHY

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cgi?99330

SELECTED PRINT VERSIONS

Can Such Things Be?
American Supernatural Tales
The Tindalos Cycle
American Gothic: An Anthology 1787 - 1916

ONLINE VERSIONS

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Death_of_Halpin_Frayser
http://gutenberg.readingroo.ms/4/3/6/4366/4366-h/4366-h.htm#page13

ONLINE AUDIO VERSIONS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEpIf8Ij4k

MISCELLANY

https://donswaim.com/
https://lithub.com/no-one-knows-why-ambrose-bierce-disappeared-but-here-are-some...
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/10/17/very-trustworthy-witnesses/
https://tinyurl.com/5y6sfdsw

I'll be reading it in this Bierce collection, The Realm of the Unreal and Other Stories, published by the Folio Society in 2009.

Nominating this called it a zombie tale of sorts, based on a description I saw somewhere. Dunno if that fits - even if we take it that a revenant Katy was physically present to kill her son, it'd take a fairly loose definition of "zombie" to include her.

I’ve read this a few times over the years and remember being put off by the Oedipal element of the mother-son relationship.
It’s a well structured story and I particularly liked the dialogue between the two lawmen. His last act of channeling his grandfather’s poetic style had me pondering what Bierce wanted to convey.
I’ve never understood where the author’s Hali/Carcosa references came from. Like most I’ve read the Chambers and Lovecraft stories where they appear and wondered what The Old Gringo would have made of his inclusion into the Mythos.
Hope more Bierce stories are in the works. Maybe Haita the Shepherd?

Here, Hali is probably a reference to one of the Arab writers traditionally known to Westerners by that name. There's at least two, one an astrologer, one a commentator on Galen. The latter may be more likely to be intended here, given the vaguely medical content of the epigraph.

We did "Haïta the Shepherd" some years ago - try the group search. Also "An Inhabitant of Carcosa".

I've read this story a few times since first encountering it about 15 years ago and I've never felt that I understood exactly what was happening. Although it doesn't read like experimental fiction, nothing - events, motives, identities - are unambiguous. Any particular interpretation or reading (a radio adaptation from the '60s, or the essay on M. Grant Kellermeyer's OldStyle Tales Press blog, to give two examples known to me) discard things to give one clear story (the radio play) or has to assume an unreliable narrator, albeit there's no hint from the authorial tone to cue the reader in that something may be amiss (Kellermeyer).

I did briefly think that maybe the killer, Branscom, was Frayser's briefly mentioned "fellow survivor" but the timelines don't seen to fit, and it wouldn't be a very satisfying answer, anyway.

And then there's the poem, which Frayser thought he'd written in a dream (and the narrator says that despite, his inherited artistic temperament, he never produced any poetry of his own), but which the lawmen find - presumably in the waking world - when they discover his body the next morning.

Not to mention the mystery of his mother: Widowed, we are told, some time after Halpin left home. Moved to California, but not in communication with her son (if the events as given can be taken at face value). Remarried and murdered by her new husband (no motive given). Resurrected as a lich (rather than as a zombie, which presumably was a term restricted to the creature of Haitian folklore in Bierce's time), and apparently by mischance throttling her son to death.

Why does he say his mother's new married name when he can't know it? Does he invoke her by doing so?

I suppose the epigraph may suggest whose devilish laughter is heard at the end of the story "the veritable body without the spirit hath walked"..."a lich so raised up hath no natural affection, nor remembrance thereof, but only hate. Also, it is known that some spirits which in life were benign become by death evil altogether". So if the killer was Katy Frayser/Catherine Larue's body, was the laughter that of her now evil spirit?

It feels like a cop out, but could this be intended as in essence a recounting of a dream, or intended to follow the logic (anti logic) of a dream.

Bizarre family reunions are a recurring motif with Bierce. There's the non-weird "A Bottomless Grave" and "My Favorite Murder" and the weird "A Baby Tramp" and "One of Twins". As is the case here, the reunion takes place after several years of separation.

And Bierce is often a satirist. Here I take as his targets Southern political families and would-be poets.