Ep. 1130, The Moonlit Road, by Ambrose Bierce VINTAGE

Apr 14, 2026

A vintage noir tale retold with atmospheric narration and a haunting moonlit murder. Multiple conflicting testimonies reveal memory, guilt, and a spectral perspective. The story traces literary roots that inspired Rashomon and explores how perception reshapes facts.

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INSIGHT

Story As Origin Of Rashomon Theme

BJ Harrison frames Ambrose Bierce's tale as a precursor to Akutagawa's 'In a Grove' and Kurosawa's Rashomon, highlighting subjective perception of events.
He emphasizes that differing witness accounts show truth's dependence on perception, invoking William James's idea about perception shaping meaning.

ANECDOTE

Son's Recollection Of Murder And Father's Disappearance

Joel Hetman Jr. recounts returning from Yale to find his mother strangled and his father later vanished after seeing something on the moonlit road.
The scene centers on a moonlit approach to the family home where the father fixates on an unseen presence and then inexplicably disappears, leaving the son bereft.

ANECDOTE

Confession Of Jealous Husband Who Imagines Murder

Caspar Gratham confesses a jealous rage fantasy in which he tests his wife's fidelity and strangles her in a recurring dream or memory.
He describes lifelong torment: wandering, guilt, and nightly visions on a moonlit road culminating in his decision that 'today my term expires.'

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Discover the roots of Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon. Ambrose Bierce, today on The Classic Tales Podcast.

Welcome to this VINTAGE episode of The Classic Tales Podcast, where an audiobook format gives you an immersive experience in classic literature. You can get friendlier with the classics you know, and discover new favorites. I'm your host BJ Harrison. I'm glad you could join us.

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Today's story established the format for the short story "In a Grove", by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, the father of the Japanese short story. "In a Grove" influenced the great Akira Kurosawa to create the film Rashomon. The concept being that two witnesses can give widely different accounts of the same factual event.

It may also serve as William James's thesis that "it is not so much the truth of events that matters, but how they are perceived, and the difference that they make to the perceiver". I hope you like it.

And now, "The Moonlit Road", by Ambrose Bierce

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