Buffalo Creek Flood

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…

The short story Ambrose Bierce wrote shortly after the death of a son speaks in-timately about the human experience of death and how the perception of reality can shape it. In short, the story seems to chronicle the unlikely escape of a condemned man only to reveal at end that he is truly dead. The majority of the plot happens within the space of time from the moment he drops from the bridge which serves as the gal-lows until his neck snaps. In reality, it is less than a second, but for Peyton…

Victoria Culpepper, in her essay “Realism and Romanticism in ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’”, explores how Ambrose Bierce reflects the literary change from Romanticism to Realism in his short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. Culpepper argues that Bierce’s use of literary devices such as structure, perception, irony, and symbolism come together to illustrate the ways in which Romanticism and Realism complement and contrast. The essay follows a simple structure, exploring each of…

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. In the first section of the story, the main character…

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…

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,…

In the short story Sonny’s Blues, by James Baldwin and short story The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce, the narrators included related events throughout the short stories. For instance the protagonists, Sonny and Farquhar, both dealt with family affairs and getting punished due to their past actions. However, the two short stories, both share similar, yet different symbols that connected to the protagonists, the theme of not everyone gets a second chance, which includes a style…

Story of an Hour & An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge: Freedom In the short stories, “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce both characters try to reach for there freedom in society. When having freedom, you have the power or the right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint (dictionary.com). As they reach for freedom it is taken away because of the actions they committed. “The story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin, a…

An Evaluation of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” The film “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” written by Ambrose Bierce and then directed by Robert Enrico is a French masterpiece of a psychological thriller that contains a fair amount of drama, mystery, and tragedy. It was a successful film and with numerous shifts of emotions, this film is an example of one with great storytelling, acting, and cinematography to mold it into a successful short film. To begin with, the most generic yet…

Although war is often idealized as an opportunity for wealth and glory, such aggressive patriotism only results in death in the end. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, Bierce communicates the idea that war brings only death and anguish by utilizing literary devices in order to convey this theme. Bierce particularly uses irony and similes in order to convey the message that war does not yield glory. Instead, he employs these literary devices in order to reveal that war is…