Farquhar's An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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.

3.) The verb changes from past tense to present tense in the second to last paragraph, because Farquhar is imagining all of the events as if they are happening. He imagines the events unfolding, describing them after they have happened. However, the author changes to present tense to alert the reader of what is really taking place. Farquhar

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.

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.

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

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.

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” 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.

All of the scenes the audience imagined were fake and imagined by Peyton. He had those vivid details of life, in the split seconds, prior to his death. As mentioned in the introduction, Bierce wrote “An Occurrence at Owl Creek,” and used his accounts of the war effectively in the story. According to Hal Holladay, “the use of the adverb “gently” to describe the movement of Farquhar’s [Peyton’s] dead body…are clear indications of Bierce’s cynicism” (Holladay).

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

Peyton Farquhar believed that he wouldn’t die at Owl Creek Bridge, but he still did, so he was just believing that to convince him to go to Owl Creek Bridge. “Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth, and he chafed

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

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

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.

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.