An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge Compare And Contrast Essay

The title plays an important role in catching the reader’s attention. If the title is interesting or compelling enough, one will be motivated to read it; otherwise, the story may never be read, resulting in a loss to both the author and the reader. In Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the author grabs the reader’s attention with a “creepy” title, indicating a bad happening on the Owl Creek Bridge. Peyton Farquhar, a planter who supports the Southern cause during the Civil War, is on the brink of execution by hanging. The title sets the eerie tone of the story, which appears to be about a hanging, and the setting, which appears to be a bridge.

On this unique day in Alabama, Peyton fahrquhar found himself in a very compromising position. Peyton found himself in on the edge of the owl creek bridge standing on the end of the board with a noose tied around his neck. Peyton was surrounded by many army soldiers, many of them were also armed with rifles. Peyton described his surroundings a being very rural, with a swiftly moving stream below the very bridge they were standing on. Time is a variable component, yet it is additionally of principal significance throughout everyday life. Time is man's strategy for estimation, recording history and checking minutes in a person’s life. In Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" the story of the catch of an Alabama warrior by the Northern armed force loans emotional and less than ideal impacts to his last hours.

“The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce tells the story of a man being punished for a crime. While he is dying, he vividly imagines his escape, the one thing that urges him on is the thought of his family. “White Heron,” by Sarah Orne Jewett follows a girl named Sylvia who lives in a small country home with her grandmother. She has a simple life: walking with her cow and hanging out with the forest creatures. However, when a young hunter arrives on the scene with a very alluring offer, Sylvia is faced with a tough decision. The setting of the short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, is in northern Alabama during the Civil War. The short story, “A White Heron”, takes place in New England during the summer on a farm. Throughout the short stories both Jewett and Bierce, describe the similar scenes a pond, a forest, and a faint sunlight.

In the short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Peyton Fahquhar is a thirty-five year civilian and planter. He had good features and from the outside, showed kindly expression. In saying this, one night while Fahquhar and his wife were sitting on a bench near the entrance to his house, a mysterious soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. While Mrs. Fahquhar was getting the soldier his water, her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired news eagerly from the front. The soldier tells Peyton, “The Yanks are repairing the railroads, and are getting ready for another advance.” There was a commandment posted everywhere saying “any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged.” Ambrose Bierce conveys suspense throughout the story using multiple literary techniques.

In “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, the story of a man by the name of Peyton Farquhar whose unlawful actions landed him in a heap of trouble is told. The story is split into three sections which goes back in forth between the past, the present and Farquhar’s falsation of both. By taking the approach of using symbols throughout the story, Bierce gave the opportunity for the reader to feel like they are apart of the story as well as leaving them with a shocker in the very end. Since the story goes back in forth between reality and illusion, the reader may get a bit confused while reading but you get

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, directed by Robert Enrico, depicts an occurrence in the mind of Peyton Farquhar. He is a civilian who tampers with the Union’s railroad system and is going to be hanged, and all he can think about is escaping and getting home to his wife. Unfortunately, death is a reality and no one can escape it.

About a third into the story, it sifts to the past, as far Fahrquhar flashes back to when, what now seems stupid, his impulse to sabotage the railroad tracks to prevent the cival war soldiers from coming into the town with the possibility of harming his family was triggered. This builds the audience’s anticipation because the hanging hasn’t happened yet and the author is trailing off into other things. This is a “cut to the chase” stimulation as it builds the excitement.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” leads readers to query Ambrose Bierce about the numerous point of view shifts his story takes. Ambrose Bierce’s descriptive writing style grasps the reader’s attention, unknowingly manipulating the reader throughout the entire story. This statement holds to be true as the story line develops. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has a variety of ups and downs throughout the story, changing the direction and perspective through its point of view of omniscient and limited omniscient. Ambrose Bierce’s various shifts deceive readers into believing the protagonist, Peyton Farquhar, has escaped a perilous fate.

Whereas the narrator of the “Tell-Tale Heart” heard many things that weren’t real, Ronald Adams of the radio play, The Hitchhiker experienced events were he saw things that didn’t quite match up with reality. All throughout The Hitchhiker, Adams repeatedly sees a hitchhiker , while others fail to notice or acknowledge his existence. “Did you see him too?/ See who?/ That man standing beside the barbed wire fence./I didn’t see anybody” (Page 98). The Hitchhiker quote depicted a scene, where Ronald had a girl hitchhiker in his car. While Adams tried to show her the hitchhiker he wanted to run down, she, however, had trouble seeing what Ronald had seen. This quote shows how Ronald Adams had trouble separating reality from fantasy, because he tried to run over a man, who the girl couldn’t confirm was actually present. While both characters of the two tales have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality, their sanity can be further questioned based upon their chronic

This creates a suspenseful journey that seems to see him freed from his noose and carried almost home to the loving arms of his wife. "As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it…" (paragraph 7). This period of time in which we follow along in our minds seems to last through the day. In the end we find that the time was only in Farquhar's head and was really only the last few seconds of his life as he saw it before the rope broke his neck. However, the hanging is not the most significant part of the story because Bierce's third person narrator remains focused on the details of the perceived passing of the time rather than the action. Although the hanging is an action necessary to Farquhar's experience, it remains in the shadows of the story, as we believe he escapes death and are drawn into his head to struggle with him towards home and freedom. This point of view entices the reader more deeply into the episode than would a less knowing point of view.

The author, Ambrose Bierce, writes with a devotion to realism that is made apparent in not only "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" but also one of his most noteworthy short stories; "Chickamauga." The story tells of a small boy who becomes lost in the woods while entertaining himself and becomes lost. The boy is then forced to spend the night in the forest and upon waking, he lays his eyes on what appears to be animals wading across a river. "They crept upon their hands and knees. They had their hands only, dragging their legs. They used their knees only, their arms hanging idle at their sides" (Bierce, "Chickamauga) The author gives an extremely detailed depiction on how the soldiers looked climbing out of the brook, however so vaguely described using the actions of

Although the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek,” is ironic, there are other literary elements represented in the story. Perhaps Ambrose Bierce’s most famous works, he used imagery from his own personal experiences in the Civil War, which adds to the suspense of the short story. Imagination is a difficult word to define. The ability to have a daydream, or picture with vivid details, is what imagination could be. An imagination is key for some people, who escape real life into a fantasy world. Bierce's “An Occurrence at Owl Creek” uses point of view, structure, and symbolism to show the power or capability of imagination.

“An Occurrence at Own Creek Bridge” is a very detailed story which paints a vivid

Despite the fact that the film version of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is exceptionally exact when contrasted with the written version, there were parts of the story that were absent from the film. For instance, the second section of the short story which explains why Peyton Farquhar was being hung in any case isn't implied in the film. I feel as though not having a purpose behind Farquhar's execution could make the story all the more befuddling for a man that has not perused the short way. In a way be that as it may, the absence of a clarification can make the story more individual since it is surrendered over to the audience to make their own presumptions with reference to why he is being hung. Without the knowledge that Farquhar's execution is the aftereffect of his endeavors to commit crimes against the Union

Ambrose Bierce’s short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” illustrates a theme of illusion versus reality distorted by the human mind. In the story, a man named Peyton Farquhar is about to be hanged on a railroad bridge towards the end of the American Civil War. Farquhar, a Confederate citizen eager to help the Confederate States of America’s cause, ventures out towards Owl Creek Bridge at the advice of a Union scout in disguise. Unbeknownst to Farquhar, Union troops captured the bridge and surrounding territory, and upon capturing Farquhar, elect to hang him on charges of being a Confederate spy and sympathizer. As he is being hanged, however, Farquhar is able to escape his fate by falling into the river below. He manages to return back to his home, only to find out the entire experience of escape was an illusion created by his own imagination. The story concludes with the revelation that he actually died on the railroad bridge. Farquhar’s mind was able to create a whole new reality for himself. This reality was vivid, and it seems real to the reader until the very end of the story. The hallucination also spanned hours, yet in reality time passed for only a few seconds. Ambrose Bierce’s story demonstrates the impeccable powers of the human mind and its ability to distort time and reality for itself.