Do you like surprise endings? “An Occurrence at Owl Creek”, by Ambrose Bierce supplies a startling one. Set in Alabama during the Civil War, Peyton Farquar, a well-to-do, slave owning plantation owner “who was at heart a soldier,” was kept out of the military service for reasons left vague. A Union scout,dressed as a Rebel, stops at his house and suggests burning a near by bridge now in Union hands. Set up, Farquar is caught and ordered to be hanged, during which the rope breaks and he makes good his escape. Upon reaching his home, thirty miles away, his reunion with his wife is cut short by the revelation that the escape was in his mind, he is actually hung! By using the literary elements point of view, setting, and symbolism, the author makes good his surprise.…
He has done this by using the rhyme pattern of ABCB. The use of Slessor 's rhyme creates a sense of flow to the audience. This particular statement works well with the beach scene featured in the poem and the amount of dead men continually sinuously into the beach. The line "the convoys of dead soldiers come" reinstates this idea. Slessor also proposes that war is inevitable and always continue just like the dead men. Slessor 's purpose of half rhymes also creates a standstill in the poem, the audience stops for a moment to reflect on the realities of war and how dreadful and disrespectful the dead men are treated after they have fought and served for their country. We also meditate for what has happened to the men and what really happens after death at war. To reinforce Slessor 's purpose he uses the lines "wavers and fades, the purple drips, the breath of the wet season has washed their inscriptions as blue as drowned men 's lips." This describes the way in which our men are forgotten and no longer required for the war effort. Slessor wants the responder to recognize this…
In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, " Bierce focuses on detail and the dramatic revelation of Farquhar's dying thoughts as he desperate tries to escape the hangmen. This creates a suspenseful journey that seems to see him freed from his noose and carried almost home to the loving arms of his wife. "As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved…
Being faced with death is a tragic event that will make most people recall and reflect on what is most essential in one's life. Symbolism, in this story, was used to create a sense of foreshadowing and suspense. Ambrose Bierce, the novelist of this story, used numerous examples of literary techniques to generate a foreshadowing of a shock effect in the account of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." One of the main techniques Bierce used was symbolism. He also used irony, allusion, imagery, and realism. Together, these built a foreshadowing/shock effect-literary technique.…
Upon reading "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrouse Bierce I immediately found myself pulled into this story from sentence one. The story is both vivid and simplistically complex. Bierce's telling of this story read like so many movies I've seen in the past. We've all seen these movies. The movie starts in the present or what we preceive to be the present and then like a sling shot catapults us back in time to account for what we've just seen. The story flowed seemlessly through time without leaving me feeling at any point confused about where or when I was. The use of time in this story was used to perfection. It starts in the present takes you back to the past and at certain parts in the story time seems to stand still. While reading this story I often at times felt as if I myself were Peyton Farquhar and that the noose was around my neck. At the begginning of this story one could come to the conclusion that Farquhar was a captured enemy soldier about to be hung for his crimes but as the story evolves we can see that he is something more complex. He's a man of substance and privilege with an insatiable love for his country and way of life. Peyton Farquhar grew up as a rich southerner. He had everything that a man could want at that point in time: a wife, children, land and slaves. For reasons unexplained in the story he was unable to take up arms and fight for his beloved country. Although he had all that a man in his time could want he felt unfulfilled. An evening of relaxation with his wife on the front porch as fate would have it would yield him a chance to take part in the fight and gain some sense of redemption. As they sat they were approached by a Federal scout and was told of events on Owl Creek Bridge. He saw that him destroying the bridge would give him a chance to make his mark in the war. This is why he was willing to do anything as "no service was too humble to him to perform in aid of the south, no…
The soldiers just wanted to believe that there was still joy and hope in world, even in such dark times. I believe that they just wanted a sign that the war would be over soon and this was that sign for them the war wasn’t necessarily over but there…
Throughout the story, we are able to see of different of a world Ambrose Bierce lived in compared to the one that we know. This is the first part of the story that noticed, because in today's world, no man would ever be hung, let alone executed for tampering with a bridge.…
(5)Near the end of the story, the theme becomes apparent, that is because even with the losses and Martin, (one of the only few that made it back from no mans land who managed to crawl back into the trenches)the regiment did not reach their objective but instead just got mowed down.(6) As wounded Martin attempted to get back inside his trench, he describes that he sees on the way back “Again and again he passed…
Ambrose Bierce’s “Occurrence at Owl Creek” delves deep within the mind of a human on the brink of death. This story began the development of the “fiction of post-mortem consciousness,” which later writers, such as Hemingway and Golding, would expand upon. The analysis of the human mind in its last seconds runs a fascinating course through the whole of the story, with elements of the natural state of the world being artfully woven into the fabric of the story. This is a story about the last delusions of man before succumbing to the depths of defeat in the eternal struggle that characterizes life.…
“The only person you will ever have to lean on for the rest of your life is you.”…
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a suspenseful story that keeps you on the edge of your seat due to its plot, its imagery, and stream of consciousness. Bierce writes many descriptive phrases to create an atmosphere of constant motion and causes your adrenaline to rush with many of the scenes in the story. In many of the scenes in the story we can find allusion to death. We also become engaged in the story by wanting the prisoner to escape and make it back home.…
Explanations and meanings of stories are usually hidden between the lines where readers cannot find them when they first read. However, after having time to look over the story, the theme and other explanations are revealed more easily. For example, in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce, it seemed that the story just led to a basic beginning to end life story, but it had a turnaround for what actually happened to the man being hanged. The author puts the point of view in a drawn out expanse for the word “now.” The moment given to the man that the author writes about also has an input to the theme of the story. Each part of the story fulfills a successful way of describing what the author wants to establish,…
Another way the author shows this appalling theme is through the use of characters. As the soldiers talk, you can see their mood and personalities; ironically this reflects how war has affected their minds and personal lifes. As the story develops you can see how the characters' life changes and how their thought of fear develops inside them. The soldiers manage to get use to the war environment, but they became more cold and less emotional. This ironic aspect expresses violence and death because after a solder has been to war, their whole aspect of life changes.…
One of the ways naturalism relates itself with realism is in concern of the nature of inevitability in reality. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce the nature of reality is highly subjective, placing the subjective reality experienced by Farquhar, as he is to be hanged by the Federal army, against the broader reality of the events and Farquhar’s inescapable death.…
“An Occurrence on Owl Creek Bridge” was written by Ambrose Beirce. The story was written between 1861 and 1865, during the Civil War. With this information it is easy to determine that this story was written as a Realistic text.…