Analysis Of An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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.

Life. It has its ups and downs, the good and the bad, all of which ultimately result in significant emotional situations. Some of these encounters are life changing while others are not. However, the fact of the matter is people don’t remember what happened during the situation, but rather how the reacted to it. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” the protagonist is thrown into a tremendous emotional situation in which his emotions take over what he knows to be reality and throw his entire world into a the realm of fantasy. Throughout “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, Farquhar’s mind altered his perception of time, distorted his sense of sight and a misleading sense of hearing causes his reality to be awry when he gets himself caught up in a very emotional predicament .

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.

To understand what happens at the point of death is impossible unless to be experienced. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is set during the civil war during a northern advancement of the south. It opens at end of Peyton Farquhar’s life just before he will be hung for intruding on Union soldiers bridge of burn it. The story introduces the stages of death as a person would go through them.

Have you ever been in a class that seemed to go on forever, one day, but rushed by the next? How were you feeling differently those two days? With your different feelings, did the time seem to pass differently? This idea is a major topic in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. This story is set during the American Civil War and follows Peyton Farquhar, who is supposed to be executed at Owl Creek Bridge. He awaited his death with apprehension, his life seemed to flash before his eyes. All of a sudden, Farquhar believed he was able to escape, running away from the bridge, only to reveal that he was hanging with a broken neck beneath the bridge. A major theme in the story is how people perceive time differently based on their emotions. This is demonstrated when Farquhar is anticipating his death, when it flashes back to the past, and when he is escaping from the execution.

Through a shifting point of view, the narrator leaves the reader pondering whether Farquhar will be able to escape. The narrator of the short story knows everything about Farquhar:

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce has the audience feeling multiple emotions such as shocked and on the edge of their seat from start to finish. Peyton Farquhar is a plantation owner is his mid-thirties. Farquhar was up for execution by hanging from an Alabama railroad bridge the Civil War because a Federal scout betrayed him. Bierce could mislead the readers thinking that Peyton Farquhar, was escaping from being hung when in fact it was just is imagination. Bierce engages a great use of characterization in how he describes the characters throughout the story and timing details, to have the audience sitting on the edge of their seats and having a twist that no one was expecting.

Ambrose Bierce writes his story in three parts, each part describing a different event that is taking place, creating the intricate plot of the story. The first part, the introduction, places the reader in a thrilling and shocking scene, the death and possible murder of a man. The second part does not continue the story and instead is a character’s introduction and a flashback to when the man was told of a crime he later decided to commit. When the scout said “the commandant officer has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily hanged” (484), he warned Farquhar of his possible death before committing the crime, but still Farquhar decided to risk his life for his side in a war thus bringing to life the story we know. Finally, the third part--the longest--describes the events that should have taken place directly after the closure of part one. Farquhar is hanged and dreams of his escape in the few seconds he has before being snapped back into reality and to his death. By structuring the story in this sequence the author forces the reader to wait and continue reading to know whether Farquhar lives or dies, thus dragging on the already excruciating

In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Peyton Farquhar is being hanged for a war crime of telling a federal scout his idea to burn down the Owl Creek Bridge during the civil war. In an ironic twist, he is being hanged on the very bridge, he wanted to burn down. During the second part of the story we learn about Peyton and his wife. Then, in the third part of the story we jump back to the original setting of the story. Farquhar is falling to the end of his rope and lucky for him, it breaks and he goes rushing down the stream. He travels for what to him seems like days, and finally gets home to his wife. Then, bam! The narrator cuts the story to black and then we are painted a

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce has the audience feeling multiple emotions such as shocked and on the edge of their sit from start to finish. Peyton Farquhar is a plantation owner is his mid-thirties. Farquhar was up for execution by hanging from an Alabama railroad bridge the Civil War because a Federal scout betrayed him. Bierce could mislead the readers thinking that Peyton Farquhar, was escaping from being hung when in fact it was just is imagination. Bierce engages a great use of characterization in how he describes the characters throughout the story and timing details to have the audience sitting on the edge of their seats and having a twist that no one was expecting.

Ambrose bierce, used the word "occurence" of the short story "An occurence of owl creek bridge". Ambrose used the word "occerence", because there was an event that had happened at owl creek bridge. It was when this cilvian, Payton did something wrong. So the army decided to hang him on the bridge. Thing did not go as planned. the roped broke that was holding payton and he plunged into the water.

Ambrose Bierce is a very talented author. He has published many works in his time and some of which are still favored among today’s generation. A lot of his stories are fairly clear, especially in giving detail about his war history. But in his story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, I never would have been able to understand the story without the use of his vivid imagery, ties to his personal life, and the main character’s point of view.

In examining a work such as “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, it is vital that the deceptively simple plot does not impair the reader to it’s true implicate insinuations of the line of authenticity and fabrications of the mind. In this short story, Bierce includes sociological implications so vigorous as to drive an otherwise moral man to commit an act of arson to show pride to his side during a civil war. This act, which he consciously kenned was against the law, ultimately lead to his demise. As the story commences, Peyton Farquhar is established as the benevolent hero, despite the reader not fully understanding what he had done.

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,

In the first and second paragraph of part three in, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the author Ambrose Bierce, uses particular and precise vocabulary to emphasize the melodramatic journey that Peyton Farquhar encounters after escaping his execution. When Farquhar awakens in the stream below the bridge, “keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fibre of his body and limbs” (66). To state that he was feeling this specific way, must have a great deal of importance. To exaggerate what Farquhar is going through, may incline the reader to really have a sense what the main character is facing. For what we know as readers, Peyton Farquhar was just trying to help the people he supported, which in this case was