...Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and Stephen Crane’s “The Blue Hotel” though different, compare as examples of Naturalism with their theme of human survival of the fittest and harsh telling of the human condition. The human condition in these stories is that while it seems humans have free will, fate is already predetermined. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Blue Hotel” characters differ. Peter Farquhar is a wealthy plantation owner, desperate to help the Southern cause. His family background is well established in the area. In contrast, little is known about the Swede, his name and background is not known at all not even where he is from. Peter Farquhar is trusting while the Swede is paranoid and afraid. Both...
Words: 425 - Pages: 2
...In the short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce, a southern planter by the name of Peyton Farquhar is being hung on the account of treason against the south during the civil war. Bierce uniquely uses symbolism to show his opinion on what a person’s journey during the afterlife looks like. All of the things that happen in the story to Farquhar symbolize something about the afterlife. The bridge that Farquhar is being hung on represents life in general and the rope used to hang him is Farquhar’s lifeline. After he is dropped from the bridge, the snapping of the rope represents the ending of Farquhar's life line on earth. When he hits the water it means that he has entered the afterlife and that journey begins. Farquhar...
Words: 384 - Pages: 2
...An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge takes place in the United States Civil War era. The short story is divided into three parts. Part one introduces Peyton Farquhar, the main character. Peyton is standing on a bridge surrounded the Northern Army and is about to be hung. Part two explains why Peyton Farquhar is being hanged. He was tricked by a Northern Solider in disguise as a Confederate Soldier explaining how the war was going. The Northern Solider told Farquhar about the repairing of the Owl Creek Bridge. Farquhar wanted to help out the Confederate Army and expressed to the in disguised solider that he wanted to sabotage the bridge. The solider explained how it could be done and went on his way away from the bridge. At night fall on his way back Farquhar was outside his house again and the Solider came back dressed in his usual Union uniform and took Farquhar to be hanged on the bridge. Part three starts with Farquhar falling off Owl Creek Bridge in a noose. The rope breaks and falls into the river beneath him. The Union Army shoots at Farquhar and to no luck he escapes the volley of bullets. He then escapes the river and travels back to his house. When...
Words: 652 - Pages: 3
...“An Occurrence at owl creek bridge” is one of the best story written by Ambrose Bierce. The well-known Author start a story with a slave owner who is in his late thirties from Alabama. Standing on owl creek bridge with a with a helpless situation with rope around his neck and his hand tied behind his back to prevent him from running away easily. There are union troops on each side of him. The main character of the story, Farquhar focuses his last thoughts on his beloved family, while also having little hope of freeing his hands and diving into the water below the bridge. Secondly Farquhar and his wife were seating in the bench in front of their house, one night when an army, who looked like he was from the southern part of the county, rode...
Words: 443 - Pages: 2
...Trenton Day Mrs. Barber English 11-5 21 March 2013 Critical Analysis The Occurrence “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has been read by any and every story critic in the nation. This short story by Ambrose Bierce has been read for over one hundred and twenty years. Bitter Bierce creates a very unsatisfying ending through the story for the reader through a unique plot structure, an intriguing setting, a common point of view, and a terrible sense of irony. The plot structure is a very weird way to tell a story. The story begins with a man ready to be hung for treason. One immediately sees that the conflict is going to be a man vs. man plot. He also learns what the scene looks like. A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross-timber above his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose boards laid upon the ties supporting the rails of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as "support," that is to say, vertical in front of...
Words: 1023 - Pages: 5
...We can speculate through stories and movies what actually goes on just before the end; that we will have a white light appearing before us waiting to take us to the great beyond, or we will have this gruesome coldness take us. In the stories An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Bullet to the Brain, the authors illustrate and embellish what death is and what precedes it. I will show how these stories are similar and different; Depending on what path is taken reflects how we will remember the fallen deceased. The peace that a split second can bring cannot be measured; it will last forever to the...
Words: 875 - Pages: 4
...“The boundaries which divide life from death are best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?” Edgar Allan Poe exclaims that death is left as a mystery no one can determine when the time will come when death approaches us. The two books “To Build a Fire” and “An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge” both establish a theme of hope, struggle, and death. Hope, struggle, and death are all common throughout the books and help the reader to understand the emotions the main protagonist is going through. In “An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge” hope is portrayed in various ways through the story. Peyton Fahrquhar, the main protagonist, was sentenced to death for attempting to sabotage the bridge connecting the North...
Words: 671 - Pages: 3
...Ambrose Bierce was an author who had a way of writing a story that was deeply felt by its reader. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” the main character, Peyton Farquhar, is being hanged by war hardened soldiers. Farquhar has a vision just mere seconds before he dies, a vision in which the soldiers fire continuous rounds from cannon and rifle at him. “Chickamauga” is about a boy of just six years old who is a deaf mute. He wanders through the woods with a wooden sword in hand, playing soldier. He falls asleep and wakes to the sight of crippled, dying soldiers retreating from battle. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “Chickamauga” Ambrose Bierce makes the reader understand the utter darkness of death by using imagery, foreshadowing,...
Words: 762 - Pages: 4
...People all cope with events that occur differently. When a person dies, it is sad for everybody. You might have hated that person, but you would still be sad if they died a horrible death, right? Peyton Farquhar, a 35 year old man who lives in the south during the civil war in America. Farquhar is being hanged on a bridge the day after a federal scout was spying in the area. While Farquhar is being hung, he goes in between life and death and is put into an imaginary world where he escapes the hanging and gets back to his family. That is, until reality snaps back into place and Peyton dies, never having escaped the federal army. In the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce uses similes, inner thinking, and specific details to build a mood. First off, similes build the mood by comparing one thing to another. “...a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon an anvil...” (Bierce 2). In this part of the story, author Ambrose Bierce compares the metallic percussion that Farquhar is hearing to that of a blacksmith’s hammer upon an anvil, building the mood and getting the reader to predict what this sound is like, and...
Words: 951 - Pages: 4
...An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Ambrose Bierce A man and his executioners stand on a railroad bridge in Alabama. The Civil War has begun and military justice is about to be served; the only spectators are a handful of soldiers. The man to be executed is a civilian dressed in the clothes of a plantation owner, and his executioners are Union soldiers. As he waits for his executioners to start, the man looks down at the water below him and imagines ways he could escape home to his wife and children. With a nod of the captain's head, the hanging begins. Part 2 introduces Peyton Farquhar, a wealthy Alabamian slave owner. Farquhar is not in the army because of personality issues, but he is determined to support the Confederate cause. An opportunity appears when a soldier dressed in a gray Confederate uniform rides up to his house. The soldier tells him that Union troops are repairing railroads in the surrounding area and have recently rebuilt the nearby bridge over Owl Creek. Apparently the chief has issued an order saying that any civilian caught tampering with the railroad will be hanged. The soldier leaves after informing Farquhar that a pile of flammable timber was piled up near the bridge. An hour later, the soldier rides past the Farquhar residence heading north. It turns out that he is actually a Union scout. Part 3 begins with Farquhar falling through the bridge. Unable to think wisely, he feels himself freeing his hands from their bindings, removing the noose around...
Words: 661 - Pages: 3
...Fahrquhar’s Death through Literary Techniques “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is about a hanging of a man. Ambrose Bierce wrote the short story, talking about Peyton Fahrquhar. Fahrquhar was hanged for trying to torch a bridge during the Civil War. Bierce had a goal to keep the reader interested; he achieved his goal by using many literary techniques. Ambrose Bierce provided a shock factor in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, that foreshadowed the ending through symbolism, allusion and irony. Symbolism was used to help the reader understand the short story. Ambrose used the watch, the timber, and the color gray to symbolize multiple things to give the reader a clue that Fahrquhar was dying. The watch that was used in the story...
Words: 860 - Pages: 4
...An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge The time compression and surrealistic details from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge captures the reader attention and imagination so much that the story becomes plausible. For instance, The author writes, “ the water roared in his ear like the Niagara,” to make the reader imagine what is taking place, hence making the reader believe what is going on in the story (Bierce 86). We sometimes wish that we could control time, rewind, fast-forward, pause, and play, if only we had such capabilities, then we could change the outcome of the situations that we caused for the better. Time does not change; however, time is the measurement of events whether it’s past, present or future. Usually, we have a concept of how much time an activity should take to accomplish, such as going for a walk or getting ready in the morning before going to work. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge uses time compression when describing Farquhar’s escape, yet we don’t realize this is happening until the end of the story, thanks to a vivid description of Farquhar actions, the way the author describes him as he comes up from under the water gasping for air, or a description of the setting and how desolate the place is while traveling that “not even a barking dog was there to show human habitation” (Bierce 86). Farquhar closes his eyes to slip into his own reality, a reality where nothing, absolutely nothing is impossible with this in mind, Farquhar’s imagination...
Words: 600 - Pages: 3
...TUI University MODULE 1: Case Study ENG102 English Composition 2 Dr. Mike Frangos 12 October 2013 "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," by Ambrose Bierce, was set during the Civil War in Alabama. This gave me an insight to life during the war and what happens to people if they take sides. The author chronicled the experience of a southern secessionist identified as Peyton Farquhar, who was condemned to death by hanging from Owl Creek Bridge. Bierce's sequence of writing goes from the present time then to a flashback, an imagined present or fantasy, then back to the present again. The story began with an unidentified man being prepared to be hanged by a company of Union soldiers on a railroad bridge that runs over a river. His hands were behind his back, his wrists were in cords, and there was a rope around his neck. He and a couple of soldiers were the only people on the bridge. After all of the essential preparations, the two soldiers stepped aside and were ready to perform their duties. And then the author transferred the reality to the main character’s thoughts, having the reader view Peyton’s thoughts also as reality. “He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet." Peyton Farquhar grew up as a rich southerner. He had everything that a man could ever want at that point in time: a wife, children, land and slaves. However, he had...
Words: 801 - Pages: 4
...Bierce’s Fantasy Parading as Realism Bierces’ short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, tells the story of a gentleman named Peyton who has been captured by federal troops. The story has many unrealistic aspects to make it seem like peyton is making his escape, but it is the use of the realistic aspects that really fools the reader. Bierce uses realistic details by fully describing the scenery, the soldiers, and what Peyton looks like. The story starts by stating that the railroad bridge is in Alabama and it is directly above “swift waters” below (Bierce 318). Bierce goes on to explain that past this bridge the “railroad ran straight away into a forest for hundreds of yards” and that the other bank of the stream was “crowned with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass canon commanding the bridge” (318). The story then goes into detail about how the infantry line is set up. The ends of the riffles are on the ground, the barrels are “inclining slightly backward” against their shoulders, and their hands are “crossed around the stock” (318). The story then goes on to describe Peyton, as he is standing on the plank. He is described as a thirty five year old civilian with a “straight nose, firm mouth, and broad forehead” (318). He also had a mustache and a “pointed beard with no whiskers (318). By going into such great detail about the scenery and the people, Bierce is able to really...
Words: 356 - Pages: 2
...Unit: Realism and Naturalism Name: Chayse French Literature: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Section: 07 Date: Nov. 13, 2014 Directions: Fill in the left column with a quotation or fact from the reading you like or found interesting. In the center column, discuss what we can infer about the fact. In the right column thoughtfully explain the significance or importance of the fact and inference within the story. Demonstrate your understanding of the reading selection. Fact/Quote Inference/Meaning Significance in the story |“Sample Quotation” |What does it mean? |Why is it important? | | | | | |An important fact from the |What can we infer? |What impact does it (the fact) have on the story and the | |reading. | |story’s outcome? | | |What does it reveal? | | |(Write responses in complete | |Why did the author choose to include that fact into the | |sentences.) |(Do not simply restate the fact in |story? ...
Words: 557 - Pages: 3
