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With reference to An Arrest and An occurance at Owl Creek bridge

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With reference to An Arrest and An occurance at Owl Creek bridge
Explore Ambrose Beirce's treatment of the theme of justice.

Leann Parker With reference to 'An Arrest' and 'An occurance at Owl
Creek bridge' Explore

Ambrose Beirce's treatment of the theme of justice.

Ambrose Beirce lived between the years of 1842 - 1914 ,though his date of death can not be for certain. He lived during the period of the civil war and was the author of supernatural stories. He wrote those stories because he was interested in the war and crime and this led too his two books; 'Tales of soldiers and civilians' and 'Can such things be?'.

Justice also played a huge part in Beirce's opinion. He believed that justice had changed during the …show more content…

Beirce makes us feel that Brower deserves to die for the crime he has commited

' Brower had never dwelt thereabout, and knew nothing of the lay of the land, he was, naturally, not long in losing himself.'

However as the story progresses Beirce makes us feel differently. At the start of the story we don't learn of the crime he has commited before, this is because Beirce doesn't want us to judge straight away,

' having murdered his brother-in-law'

he wants us to get involved and feel anger for Orrin Brower.

Although Beirce creates afeeling of hate inside of us, in the sory
Brower re-offends this makes us feel like he hasn't learnt his lesson and should be punished even worser than before. It creates great hatred amongst the reader.

' he had escaped by knocking down his jailer with an iron bar '

Beirce also creates the feeling that we are playing the role of
Brower. the feelings shown by Brower are convincing and we learn that
Brower is scared and all he longs for is freedom and we start to fill with rage that he longs for sympathy.

When we find out that it was Brower's conscience playing trickson him and he had given himself i it creates a sense of sadness overcoming the hatred.We feel that he has been tricked out of his freedom although the truth is that he deserved being imprisoned.

' Straight toward thejail the criminal held his way. Straight

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