Of Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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.

Many people say that war is worse than Hell because innocent people die in it. In Beah’s life, this is most definitely true. Throughout the war, Beah goes through many hardships and witnesses the deaths of innocent loved ones, and Beah’s writing reflects how he felt during these times. Beah uses rhetorical strategies like diction, imagery, and detail choice to convey the emotional process he had to undergo in order to survive.

“There is a savage beast in every man, and when you hand that man a sword or spear and send him forth to war, the beast stirs.” This is a quote from George R.R. Martin, an American novelist and short story writer. This quote captures the concept that Ambrose Bierce presents in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. Throughout this story, it is clear that Bierce is not keen on war. Bierce is not keen on war and believes it strips the humanity out of people.

“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

Often times war is depicted in a victorious, triumphant manner when in reality war is chaotic; full of destruction and death. In Stephen Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism” and Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge,” we witness the harsh reality of the war and the common human reaction to the havoc. Fred Collins simply wants water, but the well is on the other side of the battlefield. Peyton Farquhar, a loyal civilian to the South, just wanted to help in the war but instead was hanged for his good-intentioned attempt to destroy the bridge to help the Confederates. Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Crane wrote “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” and “A Mystery of Heroism” to show the natural human condition in adverse situations.

Louisa May Alcott narrates in the Death of a Soldier about the death of John, the soldier, and the commotion that is happening around him as he departs. Alcott’s narrative explains the difficulty of soldiers actions and emotions during warfare. The narrative starts off with the release that John is going to die. Later, Alcott illustrates the reason why soldiers react with a certain affection during the deathbed of a wounded soldier. The whole narrative of Louisa May Alcott argues about the compassion of a soldier during warfare and its acceleration for the contraction of harshness experienced frightfully in time of war.

War can be considered a tragedy, but war can also signify bravery. So many men and women die fighting for their country daily. What really happens behind enemy lines? In “The Things They Carried,” a short story by Tim O’Brien, he uses various rhetorical devices to explain to his readers to help them truly understand what it is like to be in war.

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.

What they fought for is an analysis of a collection of nearly a thousand personal letters and journals entries written by the soldiers who fought America’s famous Civil War. This book seeks to define the ideology of what the soldiers understood they were fighting for, and their comprehension of the outcome of their service .Although counter arguments agree that most soldiers could not give a solid explanation of why they fought for, nor the real Constitutional issues that were at stake; the thoughts the soldiers recorded show that they fought for more than just masculine identity; they highly valued being at home safe with their loved ones, at any cost. This book gives an inside perception of the Civil War, and a

Writers used imagery as a way to show how graphic and disturbing war can be. In the poem (Doc. D) the author describes how he would be “ killing women or even watching women get killed”. This is used to show the violent and disturbing actions many people have to do while at war. Another author describes how he saw (Doc. B) someone “ yelling out, stumbling, and floundering like a man on fire”. This shows how on a daily basis many soldiers saw events that would mentally scar them. In Document D the author describes how he would have kill men and keep shooting them to make sure they were dead. This is used to show how graphic the life of war was. The use of imagery is an effective way to show how disturbing the war is.

The story does well in manipulating a reader's way of thinking there are moments that will people thinking one thing is going to happen, but then it is later revealed the opposite, or nothing at all occurs. Evidence of such is when Peyton Fahrquhar is visited by a supposed Confederate soldier that seem to be friendly until later on readers find out the soldier was actually from the Union army. Such evidence is hinted when the author is showing the readers the last thing Peyton remembers before he was on the bridge. The story shows ” One evening Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rusty bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up the gate asking for a drink of water” ( Bierce 2). Later on, in that same paragraph readers will notice that the soldier was giving Peyton pretty valuable information a typical soldier does not tell a civilian. With what is shown goes on par with the idea of the tone and the theme due to the fact that the average reader at first would fall for such a fake identity just to be surprised at who arrested Peyton.

Ambrose Bierce’s riveting short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” embodies impeccable writing structure to create a surprising story of human deception. Bierce composes several scenarios through writing structure in which readers may believe Farquhar, a prisoner of the North, could actually escape his demise. Moreover, Bierce writes, “The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken, and he had fallen into the stream,” this incorporates a successful attempt to convince his readers that Farquhar has escaped (Beers and Odell 349). Earlier in the passage, Farquhar exclaims a brief explanation of the stream stating, “How slowly it appeared to move” and “What a sluggish stream” in opposition of his reasoning later in

All these symbols could not happen to an average individual, the reader ignores these symbols. Having so much hope for him to escape the readers will will expect Peyton escape but Bierce turns it around by one sentence at the end of the text, “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge”. Which brought the reader back into reality, Bierce was able to show that death can not be escaped.

Since the emergence of written history, many fables regarding war have encompassed a significant portion of prosodic literature. Two of the foremost war poets of the 19th and 20th century—Emily Dickinson and Rupert Brooke—have both written about profound implications of war on society and also upon the human spirit albeit in two very different styles. The book, Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger, theorizes through Allie, that Emily Dickinson was indubitably the superior war poet. Furthermore, when we analyze their works as well, we realize the invariable fact that Dickinson’s work delves into war with a much more holistic approach as well. She not only honours the soldiers for their valiant efforts, but also deftly weaves notions of liberty and civilian duty in regards to war as well as compared to Rupert Brooke who carried a romanticized imagery of martyrs within his poetry. In summation, Emily Dickinson is a superior war poet for her incisive analysis of death, and human nature in correspondence to war as compared to the patriotic salvos of Rupert Brooke’s poetry.

Death; destruction; crawling, bloody men without jaws; and a child in the middle of it is just a glimpse of the grotesque short narrative “Chickamauga” by Ambrose Bierce. Chickamauga Creek is an area near Chattanooga, Tennessee and northwestern Georgia, plagued by war, suffering, and bloodshed from the Civil War (Bohannon). Bierce served in the Union Army during the American Civil War (Campbell). Many Americans then, and today, romanticize war with glory, heroism, and patriotism. Bierce defied literary status quo, creating graphic accounts of war, in an age of sentimentalism and melodrama (Morris). Lesser publicized were the perspectives, thoughts, and realities of the soldiers after serving and surviving in the civil