Owl Creek Bridge Reality

Ambrose Bierce was a well-known writer during the late 1800s. Bierce was famous for his incredible uses of symbolism, perception, and thematic elements within his stories. Written in 1890, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is one of Bierce’s most popular works of literature. This short story is set in Alabama during the time of the Civil War. Peyton Farquhar, a young farmer, is anxiously awaiting execution atop the Owl Creek Bridge. Accused of attempting to burn the bridge, Peyton now stands surrounded by Union soldiers; his hands bound and a noose around his neck. Within minutes, the “kind-eyed” man will hang limply from the bridge, but in the moments before death the story takes an interesting turn. Reality is soon blurred with hallucination …show more content…
Thematic elements of time distortion are directly related to the theme of defying reality. Bierce “forces the reader into the realization that the mind makes its own reality, that Peyton Farquhar, in fact, experiences an escape, that time and truth are not so simple”(Holladay). Peyton’s imagined escape can be described as an “illogical denial of our mortality”(An). The story states that “The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream”(Bierce 472). Surviving a hanging because of a broken rope is near to impossible. Bierce makes Farquhar seem to be a superhuman. “The reader ignores clues throughout the narrative that Farquhar is hallucinating”(Rena 163). The reader is subconsciously aware of the impossible series of events but is unable to distinguish reality versus Farquhar's imagination. “As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon”(Bierce 475). This quote, which describes the moment of Farquhar's death, brings the reader back to