Farquhar's An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

The short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce is a short story about a man named Peyton Farquhar is about to be hanged. The story takes place during the Civil War and Farquhar is constantly thinking of his wife and children at home. He dreams that he is able to escape and run to safety, where he finds his wife. When he goes to hug her, he suddenly feels a strong pain around his neck. Farquhar is then hanging off the bridge with the noose still around his neck. He imagined all of this before he was hanged.

I chose this source from the National Archives due to its relevance to the era in which “The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, by Ambrose Bierce was written. This document stresses the life of Confederate citizens in relation to contact with Federal soldiers. It includes information about citizens loyal to the Confederate flag spying, violating military orders, citizens moving through military installations, citizens not surrendering to the Union, and citizens committing sabotage to Federal arms. Citizens also provided business firms and services to assist the Confederate war effort, even after being seized by Federal arms. Civilian businesses even northward provided Confederate espionage, deceit, and the hiding of Confederate guerilla forces.

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” 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.

Peyton Farquhar did not realize how hard escaping the soldiers would be; he just thinks that he can because he wants to. “‘If I could free my hands,’ he thought, ‘I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the wood and get away from home.” (line 48-50). This quotes show the fact that he thinks that he could possibly escape the soldiers. He thinks that he would be able to escape the soldiers, but in reality, he wasn’t able to, because he was just believing that he could escape to give himself a chance against the soldiers. He might have believed that he could escape the soldiers, but that wasn’t the reason he came in the first place.

I chose to write about “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” because it only lasts for a short few seconds, but it lasts for days in the mind of Peyton Farquhar. It is interesting to me how time is so much shorter in real life time than it is in the mind. This story took place in an Alabama town during the Civil War.

1.) The ending did not surprise me; I think it may have if we hadn’t discussed it in class. I think I would have been very surprised and confused, if I hadn’t known the ending prior to reading it.

A flashback occurs and readers learn that Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a bench one night when a soldier, who looked as if he was from the south, rode by asking for a glass of water. As the Mrs. goes and gets the

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.

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.

In the story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” written by Ambrose Bierce, Peyton Farquar, a rich plantation owner at the time of the Civil War, is unfairly hanged for his crime of intending to burn down the Owl Creek Bridge. The story is about Farquar’s heroic escape and return to his family, only for you to find out it was just a dream and that he was actually dead. Farquar is considered a tragic hero because of his error in judgment which led to his destruction; we see this from his noble status, tragic flaw, and his many other characteristics of being a tragic hero.

But somehow he escapes. Running through the countryside back to his family, Farquhar stops on the way due to fatigue and starvation. As he is about to hug his wife, he feels a blow to the neck. A blinding white light comes over him, a sounds as deafening as a cannon being released is the last thing he hears before darkness and silence engulf him. Peyton Farquhar dies that day, swinging from a rope around his neck at the Owl Creek bridge.

imagines as opposed to the execution seems to mirror the gap between who Farquhar actually

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.

Farquhar is known to be genuinely dedicated to the South, yet he refuses to become a confederate soldier. In Farquhar’s point of view becoming a soldier means to take orders from the captain, which Bierce manifests the demonstration when the captain signals to the sergeant to step aside. When Farquhar was seconds away from his death, he