Ambrose

You know a man to be rather interesting when the first thing someone tells you about them is their incredibly peculiar disappearance. Ambrose Bierce disappeared somewhere into Mexico after December 26, 1913, the date found on what is presumed to be his last letter. Carlos Fuentes, famous contemporary writer of Mexico, swears that you can still hear stories of some old foreigner wandering the Mexican landscape. This, paired with Bierce’s own impressive works and history, inspired writers such as Jorge Luis Borges, Julio Cortazar, and of course, Fuentes himself. This is what I believe to lie at the core of Chickamauga; that which we pass on to the next generation. Chickamauga is a piece of anti-war fiction that details a young boy’s fateful adventure into the woods. Bierce begins describing the child in the second paragraph on page 343, but we are never actually given a name. However, the line that interests me most is slightly below that in which Bierce speaks of the boy’s father: “In the peaceful life of a planter the warrior-fire remained; once kindled, it is never extinguished.” Now, he is speaking of the father, but it is from his books and pictures the boy learns to craft a simple, wooden sword. Weapon in hand, the child embarks on his soon-to-be morbid adventure, vanquishing foes only…

The reality of war and the fantasy of war are two very different things. Adults often glorify war and see it as an emasculator, even as a necessary part of progress, but the cruel reality of war only brings death and ruin. The narrator is not named in the story but is a boy who is merely six years of age. This young boy becomes an unfortunate victim to the disaster that is war. In Ambrose Bierce’s short story, Chickamauga, the young boy’s childlike innocence in the beginning is proof that war…

surrounding and substituting it by a visionary fantasy, usually happens because like most people The main character wishes for fulfillment that he does not have in his life. In Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Peyton Farquhar is struggling between the life he has and what he wants. The events taken place come from dire need to show himself and others how loyal he is to the southern cause during the Civil War. For this response he puts himself in a troubling situation. But…

Suspense can maintain a story’s vividness. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, Peyton Farquhar, a Southern sympathizer, awaits his hanging above Owl Creek Bridge. He envisions his lengthy and dramatic escape from the rope, only seconds before his actual horrific death. Bierce’s brilliant usage of literary techniques, such as sensory imagery and similes, aid the ever-growing suspense of Farquhar’s unfortunate situation. To begin, Bierce’s use of sensory imagery, specifically…

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…

Bitter Bierce Ambrose Bierce was born on June 24, 1842, on a settlement of horse cave creek, Ohio. He was the tenth out of thirteen siblings. In the following paragraphs it will explain why Ambrose Bierce became a bitter man, and was call bitter Bierce and how it all went into his writings. The first paragraph will explain how his life made him bitter and the second paragraph will talk about how his work being showing bitterness. Bierce left home when he was 15 to be a printers apprentice at…

A man named Peyton Farquhar is standing on a railroad bridge looking twenty feet down into the fast- moving river. This story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is written by Ambrose Bierce. The story is divided into three sections which go from a flashback to the present. Each section of the story talks about different things that are occurring in the story. The story is told in third person limited omniscient. The setting of the story is at the Owl Creek Bridge located in Northern Alabama.…

I chose to write about “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. This story caught my attention because it shows how fast a lifetime can go through the mind. Thoughts are like the speed of light. In reality, things only last for a few short seconds, but lasts for days in the mind of Peyton Farquhar. It is interesting to me how time is so much shorter in real life than it is in the mind. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a very suspenseful short story written by Ambrose Bierce that takes…

Plot Manipulation in Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” In Bierce’s short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the author deftly manipulates the plot in order to suspend the reader’s disbelief and to keep the reader engaged in the story. The reader, along with what might be described as the soul of Peyton Farquhar (a man hanged by soldiers), is led to believe that Farquhar survives the plunge off of Owl Creek Bridge and the subsequent tightening of the noose. However,…

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce, proposes the idea that human individuals have no control over their lives, and even solace found in the imagination is limited by their helpless reality. Bierce, through fighting amidst the horrors of the Civil War, developed a pessimistic disposition towards humanity. Being a local color writer, Bierce depicts his scenes with the utmost attention to detail, and structures his short story around specific settings that he uses to allegorize…