“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce tells the story of well-to-do planter Peyton Farquhar and his eventful hanging. The first part of the story describes the setting of Owl Creek Bridge, including soldiers leading Peyton to his tragic fate. Peyton ponders on how he could escape from his noose, but the captain nods to the sergeant to let Peyton fall. The second part of the story flashes back to reveal why Peyton is being hanged. A Northern scout, disguised as a Confederate soldier, stops at Peyton’s home and tells him about the North’s work near Owl Creek Bridge. The scout claimed anyone that is caught interfering with the efforts of the North will be hanged. After that, the story reaches its final section, which describes …show more content…
Peyton’s hanging failing, and results in him falling into the river below. After countless efforts of the soldiers trying to shoot Peyton, he finally escapes and arrives on land. Just as Peyton reaches his home to greet his wife, he feels a powerful blow on the back of his neck. It is then revealed that Peyton Farquhar was dead, his body hanging from the bridge with a broken neck. Ambrose Bierce’s story, just like any other writing, creates a variety of responses from readers.
Reader-response is all about the reader using their own knowledge and making a transaction using that knowledge to create their own understanding of a piece of literature. That being said, all readers will respond to a story in their own unique way. Some individuals may view a story for what it is and not dig for deeper meaning. Others, however, might try to find symbolism or analyze the story. The reader is a part of an author-text-reader relationship, and without the reader making a transaction, then the work would not be …show more content…
complete. For this particular story, I thought there was a deeper meaning. I found some information about the author, Ambrose Bierce, that could give a deeper meaning to the story. Bierce’s wife left him after a few years of marriage and his two children passed away. In my opinion, that is why Peyton Farquhar’s will to live was based off of the love for his family. For example, right before Peyton’s hanging, his thoughts are “My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.” Also, the final destination of Peyton’s illusion was his home and his wife waiting with a beaming smile. I think Bierce was using his built up emotions from the loss of his family as one of his character’s, in this case Peyton’s, reason for survival. Perhaps Bierce felt the need to construct a character that lived with the loving family he could never obtain, but took it away from Peyton, just as his had been taken away from himself. Personally, I enjoy when writer’s show a part of themselves in their work.
I like to think that authors choose to write stories they can connect their own lives to, or to create a reality they wish were their own. Before reading “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” I did not think information about the author was important to the story. I assumed books were just stories with maybe a few of the author’s feelings sprinkled in, but I did not think their life history was relevant. However, after making a connection between Peyton Farquhar and Ambrose Bierce, it is apparent that is not the case. Without the relation between the character and the author, I would have thought of the writing as some weird story about a planter that got hanged. However, with the history of the author, I understand that Bierce was using an important event in his life to create a heartfelt
story. Although the story is not very complex, I believe a deeper meaning is hidden in it. Sometimes when analyzing a piece of literature, the actual story can get lost. Other times, such as when reading “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” looking at the author’s history can open up more of a greater understanding, rather than a whole new meaning. I feel as though a reader uninformed of Bierce’s past would not get as much out of the story as an informed individual would. Both the informed and uninformed reader’s responses could vary due to their separate levels of knowledge. Overall, I found “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” very interesting. Even though the plot was a little strange, it opened my eyes to using the author’s history for a better understanding of a story.
Ambrose Bierce wrote "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" during the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century. During this time period the two writing styles of romanticism, and realism were coming together. This melding of styles was a result of the romantic period of writing and art coming to an end, just at realism was beginning to gain popularity. "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a perfect example of this transition of styles as it combines elements of both romanticism and realism to create a story that can be far-fetched while still believable at times.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce, is the story of the hanging of a Civil War era Southern gentleman by the name of Peyton Farquhar. The story begins with an unidentified man being prepared to be hanged by a company of Union soldiers on a railroad bridge that runs over a river. He is then identified as Peyton Farquhar, a man who attempted to destroy the very bridge they are standing on based on information he was given by a Federal scout posing as a Confederate soldier. As he is dropped from the bridge to hang, the rope snaps and he falls into the river. After freeing himself and returning to the surface of the river, he realizes that his senses are all much heightened and he even “noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass” (153). Peyton then begins to swim downstream as he is being shot at by the soldiers and a cannon as well. He soon pulls himself ashore and begins the long journey home. After walking all day and night, to the point where “his tongue was swollen with thirst” and “he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet” he finally makes it to his home (155). Just as he is about to embrace his wife he feels a sharp pain in his neck and hears a loud snap. He is dead from the hanging, and all this was just a dream. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” shows the potential strength that a person’s will to live can have, and that we often don’t appreciate...
Out of all the stories I have read so far in class, I found this story the most interesting and realistic piece. It never occurred to me that thoughts such as those mentioned in the story could actually be going through a dieing man’s mind. In fact, I show even more ignorance in that I have never thought about what is it truly like to experience a process of expected death. This kind of tragedy once happened on a day-to-day basis. Imagine all the other elaborate emotions going through the minds of others dieing. Bierce did a great job in putting true emotion into this story. I along with most of my class members agreed that we had no idea Peyton’s escape home did not occur at all until the final words of this story. For an author to create something so realistically disguised until the bitter end is truly an amazing accomplishment.
In writing this story, Bierce is commenting on war itself and the contrast between this romanticized tale of heroism and the gruesome reality the hundreds of thousands of men had to face, and still have to face to this very day. The true horrors of war are never normally publicized, and this is why the populace is willing to go and fight. In the case of Peyton Farquhar, this ignorance lead to his blind patriotism, which in turn lead to his death. As the narrator relates to the reader: “Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army [...] and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction.” (Bierce 2). The aforementioned quote is most definitely an affirmation of the grandeur of the military, and this is the perspective that Peyton Farquhar and many men shared. It is this illusion of grandeur that corrupts many men (and women) to head out and die in horrible
“The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce tells the story of a man being executed. As the man dies he imagines his escape. Facing death, the man wants nothing more ten to go home to his family. During his journey home, the man comes to appreciate life. Perhaps he sees how he should have lived, only as a dying man could. When faced with death he truly begins to realize what he has lost. This story might show us how death can enlighten us about life.
In Ambrose Bierces " An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" two private soldiers of the Federal army were appointed by a sergeant to lynch Peyton Farquhar from a elderly suspended bridge because of his attempt to aid the Confederate forces. He was to be executed for aiding the confederate forces. He knew his death was at his fingertips and couldn’t help ponder its arrival. He looks at the river below observing the depth of the river. Early on in the story Ambrose portrays Peyton, from his perspective, seeing a shallow river. The fact that the river is shallow and will defiantly kill Peyton distracts the reader from the truth behind the mans observation. Peytonseeing the river shallow is foreshadowing the actual depth of the river. In fact the river is so deep that when the rope snaps it seems he falls endlessly in the water. The reader is eagerly awaiting the soon death of Peyton, then suddenly surprised while the river cushions his fall. Several other soldiers were relentlessly targeting the man at ...
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” by Ambrose Bierce is a short story about a man who seems to be lost in a world between reality and imagination. The story shows trials, triumphs, and the matters of life and death. The main character Peyton Farquhar is a proud confederate, husband, planter, and politician, not only is he all of those things but he is an optimist and this is what takes him on the journey of his life. After being put in a sticky situation he has nothing else to do but hope for a miracle. It’s not till the end that we find out Peyton has been dead throughout most of the story after breaking his neck from being hung.
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....
One of the things Bierce puts in the story is the idea of flashbacks and foreshadowing. Peyton Farquhar is getting executed. As he is hanging there, He envisions himself of being free but he is moments away from death. To support that Bierce is flashing back , He is telling the story of Peyton Farquhar in third person by saying “As he is about to clasp her he feels a
Bierce begins his story in Northern Alabama at Owl Creek Bridge, looking in on a man bound in ropes and a noose surrounded by soldiers sporting weapons and Federal Army uniforms. The dead man standing is a civilian, described as a planter and a gentleman, the kind one would
Ambrose Bierce weaves a tale of intrigue and captivation, by using shifts of voice and time in the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge�. In the first four paragraphs, Bierce begins the story using third person, and in this point of view, he creates reality. We can view the situation and all aspects while it is written in third person; we know precisely what is going on, we know it is real. Near the end of the fourth paragraph, the author shifts cleverly from third person to limited omniscient. After having us view the story in third person, Bierce transfers from reality, to the main characters' thought processes, having us view Peyton's thoughts and dreams also as reality. "He looked a moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet." (P.67) it is here where Bierce shifts and starts to mislead us, by using Peyton Farquhar's thought processes as a filter. It is a clever shift, because in this moment, we are getting closer to the time of Farquhar's death, and we have previously read reality.
Ambrose Bierce was born in a farm (in Horse Cave Creek), in Meigs County, Ohio and grew up in Kosciusko County, Indiana. In 1859, Bierce joins the Military School of Kentucky, where his stay was cut short prematurely because of an accident, supposedly intentional that ended up by setting fire to the establishment. At the beginning of the American Civil War, on April 19, 1861, Bierce enlisted in the 9th Regiment volunteer infantry of Indiana, then he earned the promotion to captain. Being days later lawyer, in January 1865, he obtained a promotion to Commander. After that he became known as a journalist, he collaborated with The Argonaut, The Overland Monthly and New Letters, and he was selected director in 1868. In October 1913, Bie...
This further emphasizes the brutal reality and evil the war has brought about. This scene comes about as a Union soldier traps a Confederate scout and personally convicted Fahrquhar and sentenced him to hanging. the narrator’s capturer is viewed as inherently evil. The capturer, Peyton Fahrquhar, teases the man and talks to him before finally hanging him. The main character has an illusion of where he escapes, and eventually Peyton Fahrquhar is the one hanged under Owl Creek Bridge at the end of the story. The irony in the story is very well portrayed, for in the narrator’s illusion he sees his capturer hanged under the bridge instead of him. The irony of this situation intertwines with the symbolism of the bridge itself. The bridge represents death in this story, because of the fact the narrator is hanged there. He knows his death is inevitable, and welcomes it when he realizes he cannot escape, even in his illusion. Not only is the bridge symbolic for death, but it also is beneficial for the reader to picture the scene in which the story takes place. Bierce provides a vivid description of the bridge, with the deep blue river rushing beneath it, so that the reader may picture the narrator’s predicament and what he sees from his point of view. In his illusion, the narrator sees and explains his capturer being the one hanged, saying, “Peyton Fahrquhar was dead;
In the fictional short story of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the author Ambrose Bierce does a superior job of making the mind of a reader wonder. Throughout the story, the reader is able to watch and experience the hanging of a local plantation owner Peyton Farquhar. The story contains three parts that show the present, a flash back to the past, and into an altered reality of Farquhar’s “getaway.” The story of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” demonstrates the theme of how the nature of time is free-flowing. Bierce uses three elements of fiction to successfully support the story in its free flow of time. Ambrose Bierce uses the setting, point of view, and plot structure to help organize the theme and the story’s unique elements.
This sometimes would add to or change your initial thought. There were so many more conclusions when speaking with my group on reader response. For example, Elsy one of the girls in my group enjoyed of the poem was structured. The poem brought up questions just like mine on how she could say that she is so regretful yet supposedly do it more than once. The great thing about reader response is that it allows you to ask questions like that. To look at little things and maybe it would change your whole opinion on something. Like when going through the passage I felt sorry for her pain through her imager, but when I got to the end and saw the “I loved you all” I was like “wait a minute” and completely changed my feelings towards her. I was allowed to change my feelings and thoughts toward the work because of that one sentence. Where with new criticism you can’t do that. Reader response also allowed us to talk about things and have thoughts brought up that we didn’t even think of ourselves. When discussing the reading with the other girl in my group Jessieka she brought up how she was offended for people who wear told they couldn’t have kids. This wouldn’t have mattered in new criticism, that thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, but after she mentioned it I was like “Yeah that’s true too!” Reader response is so much