# Pennoyer — Poetry character guide

> Pennoyer in Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

**Role:** supporting

**First appearance:** 0000-poetry

## Snapshot

A one-eyed ex-West Point cadet whose cannon misfired both before and behind, leaving him to wander in mind and mourn a breach of the peace he never wanted.

## Who they are

Pennoyer sits on a roadside stone with a face ungay and an eye that is all alone, a young man whose study of how to kill ended in a double spurt of the gun. His lonely eye rolls unconsidered as he defines his views: he longed for an international brawl, not a piece of the breech, and the distinction haunts him. He is Bierce's grim joke about military ambition turned inward, a casualty of the very weapon meant to mow down the foe, and his wandering mind mirrors the absurdity of a profession that trains men to be mowed.

## In the story

### [A Man](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/poetry_se/chapters/a-man)

Governor of Oregon who defiantly refuses to greet the President and says 'He be damned!'

## Links

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