# Deacon Fitch — Poetry character guide

> Deacon Fitch in Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** good Deacon Fitch, Deacon, Fitch

**First appearance:** 0000-poetry

## Snapshot

A deacon whose pious title sits uneasily beside the greed and ruin Bierce chronicles — a small emblem of the hypocrisy the poet loves to skewer.

## Who they are

Fitch appears in the shadow of the Silver King's roaring fortunes, where Nevada weeps, the recording angel sleeps, and men are laid beside the dead they helped to kill. His deacon's title promises moral authority, but the world around him is one of vice, greed, vulgarity, and strife, and the poem's judgment falls on the whole company. He matters because he embodies Bierce's suspicion that religious office and worldly appetite are often the same thing wearing different coats.

## In the story

### [Shapes of Clay](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/shapes-of-clay)

A hypocritical religious figure whose statue is erected by posterity.

### [From the Minutes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/from-the-minutes)

Referenced indirectly as 'culler of simples' in the description of the door's target.

### [Posterity's Award](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/posterity-s-award)

Revealed as the name inscribed on the statue, the nineteenth century's great foremost man.

### [A Vision of Resurrection](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/a-vision-of-resurrection)

The last soul to rise from the grave, a deacon and editor whose headstone proclaims him a holy man who 'fell asleep in Jesus.'

### [Expositor Veritatis](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/expositor-veritatis)

His familiar form is seen in a monumental niche, identified as Thomas Fitch.

### [Substance or Shadow](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/substance-or-shadow)

Noted as having no head for satire but a corn and a heel, making him vulnerable.

### [Slander](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/slander)

Accuses a friend of exhausting all vices, as reported by the papers.

### [Valedictory](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/valedictory)

Addressed directly; criticized for lack of wealth and success in journalism, but offered a farewell handshake.

### [Two Guides](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/two-guides)

Portrayed as a holy beacon on Zion's walls, but his light is described as smoke and vapor from an infernal sputtering taper.

### [On Stone: Some Ante-Mortem Epitaphs](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/on-stone-some-ante-mortem-epitaphs)

Epitaph XXXIV describes him as one whose business was to melt pitch, buried near Sammy who applied it hot, with a humorous confusion of their graves.

### [XXXIV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/xxxiv)

The deacon whose business was to melt pitch; his grave is the first to burst.

### [XXXVII](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/xxxvii)

Asa Fiske is an alias for Deacon Fitch, who lies unblest and will beat his breast at the judgment.

### [The Two Cavees](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/the-two-cavees)

One of the two cavees; he hurls missiles and sings a song about a wench.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters/deacon_fitch
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/characters