An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge And Chickamauga Analysis

In the short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, written by Ambrose Bierce, he tells the story of white southerner during the American Civil War who has committed a crime against the Union and is punished to death by hanging. Throughout the short story Bierce takes us the readers on a journey through northern Alabama filled with suspense and foreshadowing. Through the entire short story Bierce uses many different types of foreshadowing to anticipate the fate of the main character. Bierce foreshadows the ending of the story in three ways, 1.) Peyton Farquhar’s heightened senses, 2.) at the commencement of part III he expresses that Peyton Farquhar is already dead, and 3.) Bierce uses inmediares to convey foreshadowing to us the readers.

Shadows of Death In the story, Peyton Farquhar dies, but as a reader, we do not learn this fact until the very end. Ambrose Bierce hides this fact until the end by providing an adventure through the mind of a dying Peyton Farquhar. Along the incredible journey of “escape”, Bierce alludes to the inevitable end to which the reader is captured by the idea that Peyton Farquhar could actually get away. The short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has several literary techniques that capture the reader’s attention.

These master works of war torn fiction, allow the reader to experience the impact war infuses on soldiers and citizens alike. Through powerful narration, these stories reveal how their characters are impacted physically, emotionally and psychologically by the war that surrounds

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was a story written by Ambrose Bierce. He wrote it to be a suspenseful and confusing short story. The suspense brought on by Bierce employed to clench one's attention throughout this short story by using numerous literary techniques. With his use of imagery Bierce displayed that, in his mind, Farquhar, while being hanged, still had all of his thoughts and he believed that he was escaping the army, bringing suspense to the story. Farquhar thought that the rope had snapped and that he had fallen into the water, he imagined himself escaping the military by swimming away.

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" begins with the capture of the protagonist Peyton Farquhar, a plantation and slave owner. Bierce paints a vivid picture of the surroundings around Farquhar as he awaits to be hanged. It then flashes back to the days leading up to the hanging. Where Farquhar was deceived by a federal spy claiming to be a confederate soldier. In the end, we see Farquhar escape from reality as he is serving his sentence to finally his demise. Throughout the story we can tell by the way Ambrose Bierce uses military terminology that he had served in the military during the Civil War (Grenander) "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" carries the reader back to the American Civil War to experience the final days of Peyton Farquhar, and to reflect on the events and ultimate deception that brought him to his fate

No one returns from war the same person who went. War opens an unbridgeable gap between soldiers and civilians. There’s no truth in war—just each soldier’s experience. “You can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil” (from “How to Tell a True War Story,” in O’Brien’s story collection “The Things They Carried”). Irony in modern American war literature takes many forms, and all risk the overfamiliarity that transforms style into cliché.

Within Liam O’Flaherty’s short story, “The Sniper”, there are two literary devices that greatly impact the meaning of the story. These two literary devices are irony and mood, and together they show the reader how difficult war can be and how it can pull friends and families apart. While reading the text, the reader can feel how tired, lethargic, yet exciting war can be. On page 1, paragraph 3, the sniper was “eating a sandwich hungrily” because he “had eaten nothing since morning”. In this paragraph, readers can feel how the thrill of war can overcome a person, taking over their actions, emotions, and feelings.

Within his short story, Chickamauga, Bierce is able to depict a realistic version of war and the devastation it creates through the application of imagery in his writing. The author administers imagery, which the literary diction defines as the use of “figurative language to represent objects, actions, and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical sense,” (LiteraryDevice Editors) in order to visually represent the gruesome reality of the culture at the time. More precisely, the ghastly illustration of the soldiers, behavior of the child, and comparisons of mankind to animalistic forms, add to the detail of the story and solidifies Bierce’s assertion that war is not glory, but destruction. In representing the story in such a way, Bierce illustrates how even the most innocent of creatures can enact cruelty by representing the little boy as the embodiment of both childish curiosity and ignorance.

How do you cope with the reality of day to day life? I would like to think I handle the reality of day to day life moderately well like everyone else. However, I began to question myself once again as I read Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” This story, with its unexpected ending, had me rereading it several times to pull out key details that led me down the wrong path the first time. As you can tell from the title, something big happened at the Owl Creek Bridge, but you have to wait until the end of the story to find out the truth, or else you could be lost in someone’s daydream. The story had me intrigued by the different directions it could take you, but it all made sense in the end, and I discovered you sometimes have to dig a little deeper to find the whole truth about someone.

While reading the 5 fiction short stories there became a common pattern between 3 stories and the characters in them. These stories are “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. Every character has the mindset to possibly fulfill their goals to better and/or change their lives.

In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the central character Peyton Farquhar functions as a symbol of romanticism. He is an idealistic man with a decidedly romantic view of war: “no service was too humble for him…no adventure too perilous” (Bierce 320). In addition, Farquhar’s reemergence from underwater is a classic romantic rebirth image (Owens 85). Yet while Farquhar himself represents romanticism, Bierce’s characterization of him is far from rose-colored. Bierce makes uses of burlesques to transform Farquhar from a romantic symbol to a satiric object.

Suspense is an extremely important technique that can be used in many contrasting ways. It gives readers the opportunity to slip into their favorite character’s shoes, sit on the edge of their seat, and ultimately immerse themselves into the book. The Most Dangerous Game and The Monkey’s Paw written by Richard Connell and W. W. Jacobs respectively, demonstrate this technique in a very similar way. Both of these authors use elements of suspense in their stories, using foreshadowing, dialogue and diction to create very eerie and ominous atmospheres.

In O’Flaherty’s “The Sniper” and Hardy’s “The Man He Killed” both works use plot, irony, and theme to portray the idea that war causes you to kill those you care or may have cared about. There are many similarities and differences In the plot of both “The Sniper” and “The Man He Killed”, there are many similarities and differences.

Ambrose Bierce’s " An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", is the story of Peyton Farquhar, who is a confederate farmer who is being hanged for trying to destroy a union army bridge. The story centers on a different reality that Farquhar creates in his mind, while he's really hanging, with no heartbeat, just activity in his brain. Farquhar creates an escape in his mind, seconds before he is actually dead. The story focuses on a few different major themes including, the fluidity of time, versions of reality, and death.

Literary analysis of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” Ambrose Bierce, the Author of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” about a man who was being hanged, throughout the story Peyton hallucinates and thinks that he has escaped the hanging but in reality he’s dying. Bierce uses symbolism in “ An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to foreshadow that Peyton is going to die. There are multiple allusions throughout the story that Bierce used to convey the death of Peyton. Imagery is used throughout the entire story to show that Peyton is hallucinating. Throughout the entire story Bierce uses multiple literary techniques to foreshadow Peyton’s death.