Peyton Farquhar

Imagination can overcome fear even when there is no reason to be frightened. As shown in the

One of the things we fear the most is the loss of or lack of control. Even if we really don’t have control, we like to think we do, and when we lose that sense of control, fear rushes in. For example, an alcoholic will say " I can quit any time; I’m in control." The fear comes when he realizes for the first time that he is an alcoholic and that he is not in control. We all fear uncertainty and the unknown. We arm ourselves against it with candles in the dark, or faith against the uncertainty of death. Then, when we think we’ve conquered our fear, it comes invading our minds again, let in by a smell or a taste, a sound or a thought Fear is always there, just waiting right under the surface, to awaken those memories which frighten us the most.

“Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.”-Karl Augustus Menninger.

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.

Some moments that ones have to experience can be traumatizing and harmful to the person's mind. These can affect one's actions and display signs of fear. Running away from these issues may have positive short-term effects, but as shown in Smoke Signals conquering the fear can have a much more superior effect on the mind. Sometimes condoning the issue can help one feel free and stable. Fearing one’s own past is something that should be avoided. This is a universal theme for the reason that all people have to deal with disturbing memories to some

Fear can cause our thinking processes to be distorted and irrational. It may create negative anticipation of things to come. It could cause excessive worrying of what others think or a fear of God’s wrath (Nichols, 2010). Fear sometimes makes the emotions of the individual get out of control with anger, anxiety, depression, and worrying (Nichols, 2010). In the book, all of these emotions are addressed and insight is given to help overcome them. It is important to do the necessary hard work to untie these knots in order to bring a person back to a healthy emotional state of mind. If the fear is not dealt with properly, it can also lead to negative physiological changes to the body as the immune system is weakened

‘Salem’s Lot Theme Essay They say that fear goes only as deep as the mind allows. Fear can technically help people in situations but it can also make it much worse because some people start to overthink things and make up scenarios that really aren't even possible. But everyone can move past their fears if they just think things through. Of course that's extremely hard to do but it is possible.

Literary Analysis of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” This is the story of Peyton Farquhar. Peyton was only an average man who wanted to help the Confederate army during the American Civil War. Peyton attempted to torch the Owl Creek Bridge but is captured by Union soldiers and sent to be executed. This book is written by Ambrose Bierce.

Ambrose Bierce in his story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” employs foreshadowing throughout the ending of the story and drops clues to signal in advance the unreliable nature of the concluding section. Bierce creates an abundant amount of foreshadowing. Most of the foreshadowing is used in part III of this short story. Some examples may include: The word “occurrence” in the title. What is going through Peyton Farquhar’s mind as he has the noose around his neck and is waiting to be hanged. Another example is where Farquhar feels a “sense of suffocation” after he falls into the water when the rope supposedly breaks.

In recent years there has been a hot debate between "repressed" vs. "false" memories. Neurobiological studies show that both suppression and recall and the creation of false memories are possible. This paper evaluates the evidence but forth by both sides of the controversy and concludes that both are feasible and separate phenomenon, which occur at significant rates in our society.

Ambrose Bierce explores the theme of how the human mind processes differently at the time of death, as showcased in the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and its film adaptation by Robert Enrico. Bierce goes into detail on the illusion of time, followed by the exaggeration of sound and sight experienced by Peyton as he falls to his death. The focus of the short story seems to be the escape of Peyton from a brutal hanging, when in fact the focus is discovered at the end to be how Peyton’s mind is creating a sensation of escape and freedom all while ultimately facing death. Both the short story and its film adaptation place emphasis on the human mind and its processing during tragic moments.

Freud also mentions that “we are tempted to conclude that what is ‘uncanny’ is frightening precisely because it is not known and familiar.” However, he also claims that “naturally not everything that is new and unfamiliar is frightening… the relation is not capable of inversion” (220). This announcement is strongly significant because he emphasizes more on ambivalent or contradictory meaning of uncanny rather than its literal definition. Therefore, fear possibly arises from one’s internal ego not from external circumstances that are not actually threatening at

In everyone’s life there is a moment that is so dreadful and horrific that it is best to try to push it further and further back into your mind. When traumatized by death for example it is very natural to shut off the memory in order to self-defense suppresses the awful emotional experience. Very often it is thoughtful that this neglecting and abandoning is the best way to forget. In Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved, memory is depicted as a dangerous and deliberating faculty of human consciousness. In this novel Sethe endures the oppression of self imposed prison of memory by revising the past and death of her daughter Beloved, her mother and Baby Suggs. In Louise Erdrich’s

Ambrose Bierce was famous for his strange and mysterious stories of ghosts, monsters, aliens and the supernatural, and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" was one of his weirdest. This story has virtually no dialogue of any kind, except the inner thoughts of Peyton Farquhar as he is about to be hanged, followed by a dream-like flashback that happened as he imagined the rope had broken. Bierce was a Union Army veteran, and made it clear that he was not particularly fond of this secessionist planter and slave owner. In the second part of the story, Farquhar is tantalized by the dream or hallucination of having escaped the hangman after the rope broke and making his way home. He swims away from the bridge and runs a long distance, and in the end is tantalized by an image of his wife and children, waiting for him at home. This was only in his mind, though, and in the end he is literally jerked back into reality and ends up hanging there dead at the end of a rope. Perhaps Bierce wished to deny any possibility of the afterlife and an immortal soul, or he simply did not want to offer any hope of these to a character modeled after his own enemies from the Civil War.

Many of our fears are often perpetuated by myths, things that aren 't even true. Sometimes the truth is obvious, while at other times it 's more suppressed. This is why it is important to continually educate one 's self in order to distinguish the myths from the truths.