The damned thing by Ambrose Bierce

The damned thing writes about the social anxiety or fear of the unknown. in the story the damned thing is an evil thing that cannot be described because no one is sure what it actually looks like. The problem with the damned thing besides the fact that its evil is the fact that no one knows when or how it is going to strike. in the book it desribes how the movement in the grass and the fluster of the birds in the trees are the only things that allow someone to know that the damned thing is near. Looking deeper into the idea of the unknown, society hates the unknown. it is not a comfortable feeling not knowing what is truly going on. another thing that this story shows is people and how they are not able to wrap their minds around something that is not concrete. the witness in this story was looked on as being crazy because of his account of how the man died. its easy to just push the insane button when something is not easily explained. if the majority of people do not believe what is happening than the people that actually do are easily referred to as crazy. it was eaiser in the story to rule the death becasue of a mountain lion than too actually search for the damned thing. people are to scared to find the unknown because its the unknown. this animal or creature could be insanely scary and truly evil or it could be something that does not look evil at all but truly is. society hates the fear of not knowing whats going on and i think thats the most important social fear that this story depicts.