An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge Analysis
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" or "A Dead Man's Dream" is a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published by The San Francisco Examiner in 1890, it was first collected in Bierce's 1891 book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. The story, which is set during the Civil War, is famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is considered an early example of experimentation with stream of consciousness.[1] It is Bierce's most anthologized story.[2]
Contents [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Stories with similar structure
3 Adaptations
4 Influence
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Plot summary[edit]
Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner in his mid-thirties, is being prepared for execution by hanging from an Alabama railroad bridge during the American Civil War. Six military men and a company of infantrymen are present, guarding the bridge and carrying out the sentence. Farquhar thinks of his wife and children and is then distracted by a noise that, to him, sounds like an unbearably loud clanging; it is actually the ticking of his watch. He considers the possibility of jumping off the bridge and swimming to safety if he can free his tied hands, but the soldiers drop him from the bridge before he can act on the idea.
In a flashback, Farquhar and his wife are relaxing at home one evening when a soldier rides up to …show more content…
Maxfield suggested that the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo (1958) could be interpreted as a variant on "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", and that the main narrative of the film is actually imagined by the protagonist, who is left dangling from a building at the end of the film's first scene. This theory is supported by the fact that the first draft of the Vertigo script written by co-screenwriter Samuel A. Taylor is entitled "From among the Dead, or There'll Never Be Another You, by Samuel Taylor and Ambrose
Contents [hide]
1 Plot summary
2 Stories with similar structure
3 Adaptations
4 Influence
5 Notes
6 References
7 External links
Plot summary[edit]
Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner in his mid-thirties, is being prepared for execution by hanging from an Alabama railroad bridge during the American Civil War. Six military men and a company of infantrymen are present, guarding the bridge and carrying out the sentence. Farquhar thinks of his wife and children and is then distracted by a noise that, to him, sounds like an unbearably loud clanging; it is actually the ticking of his watch. He considers the possibility of jumping off the bridge and swimming to safety if he can free his tied hands, but the soldiers drop him from the bridge before he can act on the idea.
In a flashback, Farquhar and his wife are relaxing at home one evening when a soldier rides up to …show more content…
Maxfield suggested that the Alfred Hitchcock film Vertigo (1958) could be interpreted as a variant on "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", and that the main narrative of the film is actually imagined by the protagonist, who is left dangling from a building at the end of the film's first scene. This theory is supported by the fact that the first draft of the Vertigo script written by co-screenwriter Samuel A. Taylor is entitled "From among the Dead, or There'll Never Be Another You, by Samuel Taylor and Ambrose