Ambrose Bierce's 'Occurrence At Owl Creek'

The short story by Ambrose Bierce “An Occurrence at Owl Creek” brings up many interesting ideas and topics about death and dying. In the story a man was condemned to death because he intended to assist the confederacy but was captured by union soldiers. The story focused around the man who seemed to have escaped death because the rope snapped. As soon as it appeared that he had avoided death reality cut in and his neck broke. The story ended to his limb body hanging. This “occurrence” is interesting to note for many reasons, but mainly for the thoughts of what goes on in a person’s mind before they die. What goes on in a person’s mind who is anticipating their own death? Lastly what goes on in a person’s mind who does not want to accept their …show more content…
We can infer that the thoughts racing through someone’s head would be similar to those who have survived a near death experience. These experiences are commonly known to result in hallucinations or visions; similar to how the man in Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl” Creek” experienced a vision of himself surviving. Some people see results differing from what happened especially those who have lost limbs. Although these visions do happen where someone may see a differing result to what happened, a vision with a result differing from what actually happened seems to be less common then other visions caused by near death experiences. Many people who survive a near death experience report seeing a bright light and or tunnel then have an out of body experience. An out of body experience or “OBE’s are personal experiences during which people feel as if they are perceiving the physical world from a location outside of their physical bodies” (Levitan, Lynne, and Stephan LaBerge). There are others who say they experienced a bright light and or tunnel and meet a relative who had already passed away or a figure cloaked in light. There is seemingly no explanation as to why some people receive one type of vision and not another or why some people cannot remember what happened. Another common aspect of near death experiences are distortions in time. Some people have claimed they were out for hours when in actuality they were out for minutes and