The Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge By Ambrose Bierce Essay

In Ambrose Bierce’s short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Hill, a man named Peyton Farquhar is about to be hanged for treason against the Union. While waiting to fall off the bridge to hang, Farquhar thinks back to his wife and child he left back home. He thinks of everything that brings him joy in life before his final breath. He is then dropped from the bridge, but instead of dying the rope snaps and he plunges into the water underneath the bridge. Farquhar eventually escapes his captors and makes it back home to his loving family, once again happy and at ease. Suddenly Peyton Farquhar is dead, hanging from the bridge. His escape was only a figment of his imagination. Bierce uses a plethora of literary techniques to produce suspense in his short story.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” leads readers to query Ambrose Bierce about the numerous point of view shifts his story takes. Ambrose Bierce’s descriptive writing style grasps the reader’s attention, unknowingly manipulating the reader throughout the entire story. This statement holds to be true as the story line develops. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has a variety of ups and downs throughout the story, changing the direction and perspective through its point of view of omniscient and limited omniscient. Ambrose Bierce’s various shifts deceive readers into believing the protagonist, Peyton Farquhar, has escaped a perilous fate.

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.

Ambrose Bierce’s short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” and the film version directed by Robert Enrico share some similarities but mostly the differences between the two works. Both the short story and film can be compared and contrasted in relation to the emotion, detail and perspective. One is at an advantage, reading the short story before seeing the film because the story gives a better idea of what is happening and who the protagonist really is. In other words, the short story helps in providing the reader with key details that are not mentioned in the film.

“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.

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.

The title plays an important role in catching the reader’s attention. If the title is interesting or compelling enough, one will be motivated to read it; otherwise, the story may never be read, resulting in a loss to both the author and the reader. In Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the author grabs the reader’s attention with a “creepy” title, indicating a bad happening on the Owl Creek Bridge. Peyton Farquhar, a planter who supports the Southern cause during the Civil War, is on the brink of execution by hanging. The title sets the eerie tone of the story, which appears to be about a hanging, and the setting, which appears to be a bridge.

“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

In “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, the story of a man by the name of Peyton Farquhar whose unlawful actions landed him in a heap of trouble is told. The story is split into three sections which goes back in forth between the past, the present and Farquhar’s falsation of both. By taking the approach of using symbols throughout the story, Bierce gave the opportunity for the reader to feel like they are apart of the story as well as leaving them with a shocker in the very end. Since the story goes back in forth between reality and illusion, the reader may get a bit confused while reading but you get

In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, Bierce starts her short story on the edge with Peyton Farquhar, a 35 year old planter from the south, standing on Owl Creek Bridge with his hands tied behind his back and a noose around his neck. There are soldiers from the north surrounding him. Two soldiers, one on each side of him, take away the plank in which he is standing on. Falling to the water, Farquhar focuses his last thoughts on his family, while also having hopes of freeing his hands and diving into the water below.

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.

In the short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Peyton Fahquhar is a thirty-five year civilian and planter. He had good features and from the outside, showed kindly expression. In saying this, one night while Fahquhar and his wife were sitting on a bench near the entrance to his house, a mysterious soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water. While Mrs. Fahquhar was getting the soldier his water, her husband approached the dusty horseman and inquired news eagerly from the front. The soldier tells Peyton, “The Yanks are repairing the railroads, and are getting ready for another advance.” There was a commandment posted everywhere saying “any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged.” Ambrose Bierce conveys suspense throughout the story using multiple literary techniques.

In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and "The Story of an Hour," the authors use similar techniques to create different tones, which in turn illicit very distinct reactions from the reader. Both use a third person narrator with a limited omniscient point of view to tell of a brief, yet significant period of time. In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," Bierce uses this method to create an analytical tone to tell the story of Farquhar's experience just before death. In "The Story of an Hour," Chopin uses this method to create an involved, sympathetic tone to relay the story of Mrs. Mallard's experience just before death. These stories can be compared on

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,

An abundance of writers tries to touch on the theme of subjective and objective reality. Objective reality is a world outside a person’s mind. An effortless way of interpreting such a subject is called the real world. While on the other hand, the Subjective reality is a reality you create in your mind. From the way, the irony is being used to the tone being given, and to the overall plot structure of this story, Ambrose Bierce has an amazing way of demonstrating such a theme with the story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.