Peyton Furquher in Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge pays the price for being a heroic and courageous citizen by being suddenly sentenced to death. Peyton shows his courage by having devotion for the south with an intention of destroying the owl creek bridge. Although he is aware that it might cost him his life and also his families’ life, he was willing to do that. Peyton’s ultimate destiny is to be hanged for attempting to burn the bridge, but there is a plot twist. The narrator vividly gives us a picture of the dilemma that Peyton is facing which shows us how he escaped death and was reborn right before he died. Through suspenseful narration, descriptive adjectives, detail of events, structure of the story, the distortion
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The reader does not know why or who the convicted man is, but immediately curiosity is peeked by such a brutal occurrence. The only insight into the accused is that he has kind eyes and is a common farmer. In section two, the reader is told the full name of the accused and the reasons why he is to be hanged. Sympathies are aroused as the reader learns the intimate details of the hanged man’s life, his motives for his offense, and how he was tricked into being caught. The final section illustrates the death struggle that the hanged man goes through and the events that take place in his mind, as he imagines escape and peaceful return to his home. Suspense is maintained by the effective structure of the narrative of the occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Bierce’s innovations in the story’s structure reveal his unique understanding of plot. For Bierce, competing versions of the truth can exist within the same story. The third section takes us into Farquhar’s interior life, marking a departure from the more objective tone in the story’s first section. In making this shift, Bierce shows that a short story can portray both internal and external points of view. Thus keeping the suspense all the way throughout the short …show more content…
By using descriptive adjectives, Bierce paints a vivid picture of the scene, the soldiers, the hanged man, and every detail around Owl Creek Bridge. For example, Bierce describes the soldiers on the bridge in the company “staring stonily, motionless”(Bierce, page 398), which creates imagery that, allows the reader to envision the scene unfolding before them. The details describing the ticking sound of the soon to be hanged man’s watch as “a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon an anvil”(Bierce, page 399). Such use of description makes the reader feel a part of the action and intense suspense of the story. The imagery continues through out the story but one of the most provoking and descriptive quotes comes immediately before Farquhar plunges to his death, and marks an important turning point. “As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside”(Bierce, page 398). The execution itself won’t resume until the third section of the story, so for now, Bierce uses the break in the action to give us details about Farquhar’s past. After this flashback in the second section, the action resumes not in reality
The reader does not know why or who the convicted man is, but immediately curiosity is peeked by such a brutal occurrence. The only insight into the accused is that he has kind eyes and is a common farmer. In section two, the reader is told the full name of the accused and the reasons why he is to be hanged. Sympathies are aroused as the reader learns the intimate details of the hanged man’s life, his motives for his offense, and how he was tricked into being caught. The final section illustrates the death struggle that the hanged man goes through and the events that take place in his mind, as he imagines escape and peaceful return to his home. Suspense is maintained by the effective structure of the narrative of the occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Bierce’s innovations in the story’s structure reveal his unique understanding of plot. For Bierce, competing versions of the truth can exist within the same story. The third section takes us into Farquhar’s interior life, marking a departure from the more objective tone in the story’s first section. In making this shift, Bierce shows that a short story can portray both internal and external points of view. Thus keeping the suspense all the way throughout the short …show more content…
By using descriptive adjectives, Bierce paints a vivid picture of the scene, the soldiers, the hanged man, and every detail around Owl Creek Bridge. For example, Bierce describes the soldiers on the bridge in the company “staring stonily, motionless”(Bierce, page 398), which creates imagery that, allows the reader to envision the scene unfolding before them. The details describing the ticking sound of the soon to be hanged man’s watch as “a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon an anvil”(Bierce, page 399). Such use of description makes the reader feel a part of the action and intense suspense of the story. The imagery continues through out the story but one of the most provoking and descriptive quotes comes immediately before Farquhar plunges to his death, and marks an important turning point. “As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside”(Bierce, page 398). The execution itself won’t resume until the third section of the story, so for now, Bierce uses the break in the action to give us details about Farquhar’s past. After this flashback in the second section, the action resumes not in reality