Significance Of Owl Creek Bridge Title

The Significance of the Title

Have you ever thought that a story might be really spooky based on the title, but you find out that it actually is not. Sometimes the title is not a misnomer when it does this, but it is the reader that misinterprets it. In Ambrose Bierce’s, “An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge,” the title leads the reader to believe that it is about a bridge with a haunting story to tell. What is so special about the title that it leads one to believe that; what was the “occurrence,” and why does it take place at a bridge?

The title is so influential that it has an ominous effect amongst readers. Peyton Farquhar, the man in the story, is about to be hanged for attempting to burn a bridge. At first, this appears to be the event that happens in the story, but “all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark.” Peyton believes that the rope broke and that he falls into the water. Farquhar rises to the surface, dodges bullets, runs thirty miles, and just when he is about to embrace his wife, he dies on the bridge. …show more content…
Ambrose Bierce allows you to access Peyton’s mind as Peyton journeys from life to death. It originally seems that the hanging is the incident that took place on the bridge, when in reality; Peyton’s imagination is the occurrence. When the rope breaks, Peyton falls into the lake of his