Analysis Of Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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Literary Analysis of “Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce
The story of Owl Creek Bridge is set during the Civil War. The Owl Creek Bridge is located on a railroad in northern Alabama. It is very dark, horrid with soldiers hung over a river, and shot dead. Peyton Farquhar is a confederate soldier in the army. Peyton shows symbols, flashbacks, and foreshadowing as he is getting ready to die by execution. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge has many examples of themes, motifs and symbols. 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 …show more content…

By saying “This plank had been held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties”, Bierce is saying that the driftwood would be a better symbol for the story.
Another symbol of the story is a gun. The reason the gun is a symbol is because the gun ended Peyton’s life.Finally, motifs occur in the story. One of the motifs in the story is that of the color gray. The motif of the color gray is crucial. The color gray is a little story within the story. For Example, gray was the confederate uniform and how they use gray to distort the truth.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has many literary terms and symbols. Freedom was the main subject of symbols. Farquhar used flashbacks and the driftwood to picture what life would be like if he was not about to be executed. Bierce uses Farquhar to tell about life and what emotions soldiers are feeling during the Civil

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