Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

“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.

Ambrose Bierce's’ view on the military is much similar than the view of some of ours and he expresses his view throughout “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Bierce looks at the military, or even war, with an opinion of pure violence. Bierce describes the war as violent and full of suffrage. Never once does Bierce describe war as a pleasing idea.

There has been much examination of the more popular terms used in American literature, such as romanticism and classicism, but little examination done on literary realism. Despite realism being mostly ignored in the late nineteenth century, it has now become commonplace in American literature. Although An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce does offer some examples of literary realism in its verisimilitude of detail and idealism, there were also many instances of fantastical imagery and an unrealistic sense of time, which is contradictory to literary realism.

The Horsemen in the Sky by Ambrose Bierce Works Cited Missing "The Horseman in the Sky" by Ambrose Bierce has many meanings in the

Author, Ambrose Bierce, who is considered one of the Great American authors, wrote during the realism period. Particularly, in his work titled An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, written in 1890, we can see evidence of the characteristics, themes and style identified with the realism movement which was extant in American letters between 1850 and 1900. As a representative of such a movement, Ambrose Bierce, then remains on the most identifiable and iconic writers of his time.

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

Being that Section II is a shorter section, the narrator used symbols which embody many things throughout the story. One in particular that occurred in the story more than once was the color gray. In this section it was used to describe the soldier by saying, “One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water” (Bierce II). Because gray indicated a confederate soldier, Farquhar did not immediately catch on to the disguised soldier actually being a Northern Scout until he rode past the going north after nightfall. Ichihara states, “An illusion is made up of images from reality so they are ultimately synonymous of

In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, Bierce starts her short story on the edge with Peyton Farquhar, a 35 year old planter from the south, standing on Owl Creek Bridge with his hands tied behind his back and a noose around his neck. There are soldiers from the north surrounding him. Two soldiers, one on each side of him, take away the plank in which he is standing on. Falling to the water, Farquhar focuses his last thoughts on his family, while also having hopes of freeing his hands and diving into the water below.

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a story written by Ambrose Bierce that explores the

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.

The author writes of many different human beings, showing that each one thinks war is ultimately, the worst thing. While in the war, Billy is in the hospital during his imprisonment by the Germans. There is an old general there who was a teacher before joining in the war efforts. One day, in a conversation with Billy and another older man in the hospital, the general starts to talk about what he thinks of the war. He says, "You know-- we’ve had to imagine the war here, and we have imagined that it was being fought by aging men like ourselves. We had forgotten that wars were fought by babies. When I saw those freshly shaved faces, it was a shock. "‘My God, my God----’ I said to myself, ‘It’s the Children’s Crusade’" (p. 106). This general feels that war is nothing but babies being murdered by one another. He is disturbed by the thought of war and the fact that so many young people are dying for its cause.

The powerful images of the battle the child stumbles upon are also used by Bierce as a way to satirize American culture of natural privilege and right. Bierce describes that “the very ground seeming in motion toward the creek” (456). The

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,

An abundance of writers tries to touch on the theme of subjective and objective reality. Objective reality is a world outside a person’s mind. An effortless way of interpreting such a subject is called the real world. While on the other hand, the Subjective reality is a reality you create in your mind. From the way, the irony is being used to the tone being given, and to the overall plot structure of this story, Ambrose Bierce has an amazing way of demonstrating such a theme with the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.