The Bridge

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…

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. In the first…

“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…

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, as…

The story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce focuses on the theme about the perception of time. The story is about a man, Peyton Farquhar, who is a young plantation owner that is found guilty for trying to burn down the Owl Creek bridge during the Civil War. They are hanging him for his act of rebellion he had planned while trying to help the Confederacy to defeat the Union. As the man realizes how little time he has left, time emerges as a predominate theme in the story.…

William Wordsworth’s poem: ’Composed on the Westminster Bridge’ is a sonnet that describes London in the morning as the city is still asleep. The poem’s title: “composed on the Westminster Bridge” tells the reader that the Author is standing on the Westminster Bridge, in London and is describing the sights of the City that he can see from the Bridge. Wordsworth is fascinated by the city’s beauty. He says that the earth has nothing equal to show than this beautiful scene and that the one who…

day end. That truth is perhaps the defining feature of the human condition. Mortality is inevitable act, so we can either accept it, or continue to deny the coming day of our own deaths. In Ambrose Bierce’s short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the principal character, Peyton Farquhar, experiences both the denial and acceptance of his impending death. Farquhar is sentenced to be hanged by Union soldiers and as he faces his final moments, imagines his escape back to his family. {The…

The life and death of Peyton Farquhar is portrayed in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. Through the use of compelling storytelling and vivid imagery, Ambrose Bierce takes the reader on an adventure like no other. Beginning moments before his death, Peyton Farquhar recalled his life, fantasized about escape, and unfortunately greeted death at the bitter end. The story began with Peyton Farquhar awaiting his execution. He viewed his surroundings and commented on the private…

The short story an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge takes place during the civil war in the United States. “A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama… The man’s hand were behind his back, the wrists bound with cord.” (Bierce) The narrator is in a very precarious situation. He is being taken to his own execution. As he walks closer to the hangman’s noose he begins to contemplate how he can escape. He notices the guards and the forest that the railroad track leads to. The rope is tied…

Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” ends with this stark imagery: “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of Owl Creek bridge” (151). This line presents a cold, distant, and annotative description of death; there is little to invoke the representation of the life that has been lost. Yet, Bierce’s narrative up to this point has succinctly painted the picture of that life, its final moments and its desire to keep…