Realism: An Escape from Reality or Fantasy
Realism is perceived in many different ways. Realism is defined as “the attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly.” (www.wsu.edu). Reality is known to destroy an illusion.” In The literal take on realism is defined as “the faithful representation of reality” or verisimilitude.”(public.wsu.edu/Campbell). There have been people who can be afraid to accept their reality, so they will think of a fantasy to create to escape their current life or situation. Fantasy is defined as “imagination, especially when extravagant and unrestrained.” (www.wsu.edu). Depending on what situation someone is experiencing at the time, can determine the mindset of what their reality or fantasy can be. There are two
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The theme of this short story is based on time and reality. After committing a crime and being caught, Farquhar is being punished with death by hanging. Farquhar’s reality in his mind is that he has somehow escaped from the noose around his neck and has fallen into the river to escape death and the soldiers. Even though he is dead within minutes, his fantasy is to escape and return home to his family. Once Farquhar is about to reach out and clasp his wife’s face does the reader accept the reality of the story that, Farquhar was dead and has been since the being of the story. “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.” (Pg 151). This story draws you into Farquhar’s fantasy of wanting to live and return home but, the reality of it is that will never be able to due to his death. Bierce draws the reader into his fantasy of this story because as the reader you want Farquhar to make it home to his family, even though he has done something
Setting in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a mutable component and known as one of the most imperative indicators in the text to direct the reader towards how it should be perceived and what is happening. Based during the Civil War the environment was set in occupied Federal Army territory where, “a lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right.” (Bierce 399). The function of time in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" both creates positives and negatives that define the story as realist that describes moments with genuine detail, taking many paragraphs to relate a single second. Such as the moment, “ [Farquhar] looked a moment his “unsteadfast foot,” then let
According to Baybrook, “Peyton Farquhar believes -- as do the readers -- that he has escaped execution and, under heavy gunfire, has made his way back home” (Baybrook). One of Bierce’s main means to achieve this goal of forcing the reader to buy into his delusion is ‘time’. Because ‘time’ is utilized to calibrate human experiences, it becomes obscure, altered and split in times of extreme emotional disturbance. The time that is required for hanging Farquar seems to be indefinite, however, Bierce goes the extra mile and indicates that there is a certain ‘treshold of death’ that lingers beyond recognition. When it is exceeded, it results in a distorted and blurred pe...
Fantasy – a series of made up images of the mind which create a world not bound by the rules of reality (Dictionary)
Bierce broke this story down into three parts. The first part of the narrative creates an atmosphere with the setting at Owl Creek Bridge. Great detail is told here as to who is present at the scene, what is happening, what the scene looks like, etc. But the reader only receives ideas and thoughts from one person, Peyton Farquar. The first part as like the other two parts of this story is written very systematically and clear. Even with such a structured set up, the author still manages to put great anticipation and fearsome emotion into the near end of the first part of this story. At this point the author makes the reader think Peyton is devising a way to set his hands free from the rope thereby beginning his journey to escape home.
It is true that in all great literature. Clues which later seem obvious are often undetected until the story’s plot is resolved. The reader is unaware of the foreshadowing until the plot comes together. Ambrose Bierces " An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and " A Horseman In The Sky" identify literary elements supporting this thought.
People can easily recognize that a butterfly, a horse, or a tree are alive and that a
After his capture Farquhar is sentenced to death by hanging, when the noose slipped around his neck the only thoughts going through his head were those of escape, how he would do it and what he would do if he did. Before he knew it the sergeant stepped aside and Farquhar fell though the bridge to his death, but this is not the e...
He was a slave owner, a politician, a secessionist, meaning he was devoted to the Southern cause of seceding from the United States. He was not allowed to be in the army, for a reason that is irrelevant to the story, according to the narrator; however, he does whatever job he can in aid of the South, as he is of good character and faith (655). This is a very important detail to the story, as Farquhar is being hanged when the story begins. Bierce’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is an antiwar short story. It shows the futility and waste of war....
The short story starts by creating curiosity with the revelation that a man will be hung in the owl creek bridge. At that moment the reader does not know the reasons for which the man will be sentenced. In the second section, the name of the man who will be hanged is mentioned, the motives for his crime and how he was captured. The final section illustrates the struggle Peyton Farquhar was facing and the events that went through your mind at that moment. He imagined/dream that he escape and peaceful return to their home. But the reality is another and his life ends in darkness and silence. (Bierce 201-209)
Reading and understanding literature is not as easy as it sounds. Being able to dissect each piece of information and connect it to the overall theme of the story takes lots of rereading and critical thinking. Reading the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” takes lots of critical thinking and understanding the literature in a different point of view than the average reader would. The theme of this particular story quickly came to mind after initially concluding the reading, the author is trying to convey that nobody can escape death and how thoughts in the mind are so substantial in the consciousness that it can take over the reality. The author comes to this theme by incorporating specific literary elements such a symbol, irony, and narration. These are important because they make up the theme by bringing the necessary elements together.
For the purposes of this paper, I would like to adopt the synthesized definition editors Zamora and Faris distill from several key writers and academics featured in the anthology/reader Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community:
A large portion of the text in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is just Peyton’s imagination, and the details are quite vivid. Obviously, the boy in “Chickamauga” uses his imagination freely, from his pretend sword to riding the wounded soldiers like horses. It seems that this is part of Bierce’s denouncement of romanticism. Peyton’s escape, daring and unbelievable, is only his imagination. It is as if Bierce is communicating that these types of things only happen in the imagination; in reality the man uneventfully hangs and dies. The point Bierce makes is that Romanticism is just an imaginative view of the world. He attempts to make it quite clear that the world is unfair, tragic, and cruel, something Bierce had experienced firsthand. The wording used in both stories paints very realistic and grotesque images, like when the jawless soldier is described; “from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone.”(Bierce) This type of description goes along with Bierce’s attempt to show true, gruesome reality, and we see it again when the boy’s mother is seen with her skull agape. Bierce also describes more beautiful scenes in a similar manner, allowing the reader to imagine vivid and detailed images. Perhaps the most prominent example of his vivid description is when Peyton emerges from the water; “He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the
In his article "A Possible Source for the Conclusion of Ambrose Bierce's 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'", Steven Tabachnick explores an idea expressed by F.W. Boege in 1950. That idea, which appeared in an article entitled "Point of View in Dickens", was that an "interesting parallel" exists between the closing scenes of Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" and Dickens's "A Visit to Newgate". Tabachnick points out that Boege provided no elaboration regarding these parallels and then expressed an intent do so himself. In the process, Tabachnick describes how the protagonists from both stories are awaiting execution when they dream of their wives and of escape. Ultimately, they both awaken to the realization that they still face death. Tabachnick describes Bierce's version as more dramatic, due to the readers' lack of awareness that Farquhar is dreaming and the immediacy of his execution.
Realism is a literary style in which the author describes people, their actions, their emotions and surroundings as close to the reality as possible. The characters are not perfectly good or completely evil; they exhibit strengths and weaknesses, just as real people. The characters often commit crimes or do immoral things, and are not always just good or just evil. In a realistic novel, aspects of the time period or location are also taken into consideration. Characters dress in clothes that befit them, and speak with local dialects. Most importantly, characters are not sugar coated or exaggerated. The characters do things as they would normally do them, and are not worse or better then their real life counterparts.
In order to see how Magical Realism is found in this treatment, one must first consider at least one of the identifying marks of Magical Realism. Among the characteristics that identify Magical Realism is the feeling of transcendence that the reader has while reading a Magical Realist text (Simpkins 150). During transcendence, a reader senses something that is beyond the real world. At the same time, however, the reader still feels as if he or she were rooted in the world (Sandner 52). After the reader undergoes transcendence, then he or she should have a different outlook on life.