Theme Of Gothicism In An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

Does time stop or slow down during death? In the short story by Ambrose Bierce “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. The author extensively uses foreshadowing during the short story that manipulates the reader to lead towards the factors of symbolism, irony, setting, and viewpoint. They’re numerous viewpoints from the readers perspective of, symbolism, and irony that, indicate the timeline of Peyton Farquhar tragic death. Ambrose Bierce uses the time to manipulate the reader from understanding the plot, making it impossible to forecast most of the short story.

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.

Through “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” the soldiers standing, watching as everything goes on around them, are not able to stop what is happening. The soldiers represent the unforgiving nature of war.

Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” tells the story of Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner devoted to the Southern cause, with a well-known family background,

In the 1800’s, many writers became tired of the romanticized writing that had been popular during that time. Because of the Romantic movement, many writers wanted a real view of the world, not a sugar-coated fantasy. Therefore, the Realism movement was born. Stories such as “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce and “An Episode of War” by Stephen Crane were created. These authors focused on real life and the fact that life is unfair and is to be taken seriously. The stories also use many literary techniques to show the reality of the world.

There has been much examination of the more popular terms used in American literature, such as romanticism and classicism, but little examination done on literary realism. Despite realism being mostly ignored in the late nineteenth century, it has now become commonplace in American literature. Although An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce does offer some examples of literary realism in its verisimilitude of detail and idealism, there were also many instances of fantastical imagery and an unrealistic sense of time, which is contradictory to literary realism.

“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.

I believe “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is worthy to remain on the required reading list because, although Bierce shares the common element of shaping each character to their setting, class, and gender role through a realistic representation; he goes a step further by exploring the inner truths of characters through a unique narrative approach compared to other realist authors. All of the characteristics above were becoming prevalent themes in the late 19th century; as the population began to digest the aftermath effects of the Civil War, this led to the transition of Romantic literature to a bleak, realistic approach. However, unlike other contemporary writers, Bierce did not limit the narrator to the third person omniscient point of view like in Jack London’s “To Build a

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.

In a daring, catastrophic short story “Chickamauga,” Ambrose Bierce uses juxtapositional imagery to show how the fantasies of war deviate from the jarring realities of its horrors. As the boy is wandering through the woods, he sees men crawling with their faces “streaked and gouted with red.” Their faces make him think of “a painted clown” and he begins to laugh. The image of a man’s face “gouted with red” paints a gory, brutal image in the minds of readers while the image of “a painted clown” creates a joyful, humorous image. A child seeing a clown rather than dying, brutalized man baffles readers and shows that the child has no idea how devastating and damaging war can be.

Before the Civil War, fighting was generally seen as this glorious act in which people battled for pride and honor. However, with the advent of photography, nothing stopped the raw images of the horrors of war from being captured for what they really are. In literature, this shift toward the realization of the true nature of war marked a departure from romanticism into realism. Works like Stephan Crane’s “A Mystery of Heroism” and Ambrose Bierce’s "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" demonstrate the brutal challenges that ordinary people face while a nation is at strife. Even though Jack London’s “To Build a Fire” was far removed from the Continental United States in setting, it is still heavily influenced by the atmosphere that the Civil War left the nation in. While these three short stories differ in many aspects, they are bound together because they all depict real life and can therefore be categorized as pieces of American Realism.

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, written by Ambrose Bierce is known as one of the most famous American literature stories of all time. Ambrose Bierce was one of the best writers to ever exist and freely shared his greatness, which is visibly seen throughout his short story. In the story, author Ambrose Bierce portrays a man from the south named Peyton Farquhar, who is prepared to face execution by being hanged on a railroad bridge in Alabama. Based on the imagery, irony, and characters developed in Bierce’s most famous short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, every reader incorporates the power to signify the energy Peyton Farquhar releases and his mindset as he faces death.

The structure of the story, helps to show the significance of the power of imagination in life. Bierce used structure to help influence this idea, to help reader to understand the main character’s problem in the context of the story. At the beginning of the story, the main character Peyton Farquhar, is shown on a bridge. Peyton, according to the text, “stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below” (83). From the opening sentence, Bierce has definitely grabbed the readers’ attention. Readers can imagine the scenes, in which the action is occurring. Bierce used structure to make point of view appear better throughout the story. Instead of explaining why Peyton was hanged first, Bierce went to the actual hanging itself. The story could have been better if it went chronically, but since information was withheld, the story became better. Bierce jumped around in his story, and had time to