A Psychological Shipwreck
"A Psychological Shipwreck" is a short story by American Civil War soldier, wit, and writer Ambrose Bierce and published by The Argonaut under the title "My Shipwreck" on May 24, 1879.[1] It was included in the 1893 collection Can Such Things Be?
Plot summary
William Jarrett, the story's narrator, boards the Morrow, a sailing ship, in Liverpool. The ship is bound for New York City. Here he meets Miss Janette Harford. They become friendly and connect in a deep way which (William assures the reader) is not love. When he confesses to Janette, she looks at him strangely, before closing her eyes. She appears to have fallen asleep. Her finger has fallen on a passage from Denneker's Meditations concerning souls meeting and knowing one another beyond the body. A storm sets in. Havoc results. The ship begins to sink. After Janette is ripped away from William, he passes out.
Jarrett awakens in a berth on a steamship called the City of Prague. It had left port at the same time as the Morrow. Jarrett had originally been invited to go aboard it with his friend Gordon Doyle. Doyle finds Jarrett and tries to deduce what is going on. Jarrett slowly learns that he boarded the City of Prague when she set sail. He learns that Janette is Gordon's fiancée, who was sent on the Morrow so that Doyle could settle matters in New York before her arrival. The book that Doyle is reading is, again, Denneker's Meditations. The volume has a special passage marked. It is apparently a second copy, which Janette had given him. When Gordon and Jarrett arrive in New York, they look for the Morrow to arrive. It never returns.
Allusion
It is quoted in the prologue to American science fiction writer Gene Wolfe's 1975 novella "Silhouette."[2] The theme of apportation, in which human consciousness can move between physical locations, is integral to both works.
References
Sources
- Grenander, M.E. Ambrose Bierce. NY: Twayne Publishers, 1971.
- McWilliams, Carey (1929; reprinted 1967). Ambrose Bierce: A Biography, Archon Books.
- Morris, Roy (1999) [1995]. Ambrose Bierce: alone in bad company. US: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-512628-0.
- Nickell, Joseph 'Joe' (1992). Ambrose Bierce Is Missing and Other Historical Mysteries.
- O'Conner, Richard (1967). Ambrose Bierce: a Biography, with illustrations, Boston, Little, Brown and Company.
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- Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891)
- The Devil's Dictionary (1906)
- A Vision of Doom (posthumous published 1980)
- "A Psychological Shipwreck" (1879)
- "Killed at Resaca" (1887)
- "An Inhabitant of Carcosa" (1886)
- "One of the Missing" (1888)
- "A Tough Tussle" (1888)
- "An Unfinished Race" (1888)
- "One of Twins" (1888)
- "A Horseman in the Sky" (1889)
- "The Spook House" (1889)
- "The Middle Toe of the Right Foot" (1890)
- "The Man and the Snake" (1890)
- "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1890)
- "The Realm of the Unreal" (1890)
- "The Boarded Window" (1891)
- "The Secret of Macarger's Gulch" (1891)
- "The Death of Halpin Frayser" (1891)
- "The Damned Thing" (1893)
- "The Eyes of the Panther" (1897)
- "Moxon's Master" (1899)
- "The Moonlit Road" (1907)
- "Beyond the Wall" (1907)