An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

2.) Farquhar neck was broken, so he must have died instantly. “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with his broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge” (Bierce 57).

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.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce, is the story of the hanging of a Civil War era Southern gentleman by the name of Peyton Farquhar. The story begins with an unidentified man being prepared to be hanged by a company of Union soldiers on a railroad bridge that runs over a river. He is then identified as Peyton Farquhar, a man who attempted to destroy the very bridge they are standing on based on information he was given by a Federal scout posing as a Confederate soldier. As he is dropped from the bridge to hang, the rope snaps and he falls into the river. After freeing himself and returning to the surface of the river, he realizes that his senses are all much

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.

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.

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.

Beginning in 1891, Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has astonished audiences with its wide ability to daze and amaze readers in such a short amount of time. The event of Peyton Farquhar being hanged by the opposing Union Army quickly turns into an action-packed escape attempt while being mislead by Bierce's literary tools. In the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” the author Ambrose Bierce utilizes situational and dramatic irony, an untrustworthy narrator, and shifting points of view to prove that the mind can be easily manipulated and create its own realities to escape others.

Although Farquhar is getting hanged, the story continues, and it seems as though Farquhar escapes the rope and river, but in all reality, Farquhar is dying. The short story is told on page 91 as if Farquhar escapes the ropes and river and makes it home to his wife with a broken neck, basically cheating death. This is another example of how the author uses a third person because the readers know that Farquhar is hallucinating and thinking he is going home, meaning the readers know all of Farquhar's thoughts. Ambrose Bierce's storytelling is nothing short of excellent. She plays with time and perspective in ways that are groundbreaking for her time.

Ambrose Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a story about a man’s final moments on earth before he is hanged and how he got there. There is a struggle within the character Farquhar of who he is and who he thinks he is. This causes different views throughout the story between reality and a fantasized reality. This plays a big role in the story because in part three of the story he thinks he is far superior and had outwitted his captures and escaped without a scratch after the rope broke and fell into the water. In reality he had been hanged and his body was swaying back and forth. This story had more meaning then just the top layer of being just about a guy who is being hanged. The meaning of this story is how fluid time moves, by this I mean how time seems to flow like a river it can move fast to slow and even seem to stand still. It has a secondary meaning of how we can fantasize another reality that can cause troubles for us. By this I mean you can envision your self into another world when you are still in the actual world, this can cause you to get yourself into a lot of trouble.

In this Literature course, we read “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. In this story, we see a plantation owner, who is about to get hung because he crossed the North’s territory, experience the last thoughts and moments going through his head before his death. This story creates a blurred line between reality and illusion. I believe this story has two themes: time and reality. Time is the main reason of why this story worked out like it did. Bierce uses the readers’ sense of time by revealing at the very end of the story that Farquhar was actually imagining this escape in the last seconds before his death. Bierce used the time element by manipulating and portraying the readers about the outcome of the story. The second type theme is reality. The way reality is used in this work has the readers fooled into believe one event is about to happen while a whole other event

Not being able to sleep that night he got up and looked out the window hoping that Humperdinck had not sent his men. Early in the morning when the birds sung a beautiful song and the flowers bloomed with bright colors Jack and Peter walked back home pulling a deer on an old cart. Although this wasn’t the only thing going on in the morning, Humperdinck had just sent ten guards to locate Westley and Buttercup. The guards had arrived, they busted doors, windows, walls, and anything they could get their hands on. They would even risk their lives to have Westley dead and Buttercup returned safely to their king. Once they made their way into the house they yelled out for Westley to give up. There was no response. They all split up and found Westley sitting at the table with a sword in his left hand and a warm drink in his right. He got up quickly and killed two guards. With eight left he fought until one of the guards’ stabbed left arm. Another guard stabbed his back and he fell to the hard wood floor. He bled and bled. They then left with Buttercup crying in tears as they walked past

The film version of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge leaves out section two, along with many other important factors. Peyton Farquhar: the main character and the man being hanged is left nameless throughout the film and his detailed background that is portrayed in the text is left out as well. By reading the

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.

Reading and understanding literature is not as easy as it sounds. Being able to dissect each piece of information and connect it to the overall theme of the story takes lots of rereading and critical thinking. Reading the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” takes lots of critical thinking and understanding the literature in a different point of view than the average reader would. The theme of this particular story quickly came to mind after initially concluding the reading, the author is trying to convey that nobody can escape death and how thoughts in the mind are so substantial in the consciousness that it can take over the reality. The author comes to this theme by incorporating specific literary elements such a symbol, irony,