Owl Creek Bridge Foreshadowing

In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, Farquhar tries to cheat death after he has been hanged by a disguised soldier. Farquhar shows his will to live during the events after the hanging. The story then goes through the events in Farquhars mind as he drifts away from life. The theme of this story is that perception is not always reality. This is shown throughout the story in the stages before Farquhar's death. Firstly this is shown through foreshadowing. Foreshadowing was used in the beginning when Farquhar was tricked into going to the bridge by the disguised soldier, this ties into the theme because Farquhar does not realize that going to the bridge would not be safe, he was trapped. Secondly, this theme is shown through

For example, when Farquhar was tricked into going to the bridge by the soldier, Farquhar did not recognize the possible trap he was falling into. Foreshadowing was used right after Farquhar had been hanged, after he fell he found that his “neck was in pain,” and he was “lifting his hand to find it horribly swollen,” (Bierce III). This example may hint at the fact that the end of Farquhar's dream sequence is coming and he has ultimately died. Moreover, when Farquhar fell he “lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state he was awakened,” (Bierce 8), this shows that Farquhar is already dead and that anything after this is his dream sequence before death. Yet, the story continues as if he is still alive. Adding on, Farquhar heard an obnoxious sound, “what he heard was the ticking of his watch,” (Bierce 8), this hints at the fact that his time is almost up. The noise of his watch shows how Farquhar is losing his perception of time and his dream sequence is lasting quite a long time even though he should already be dead. Farquhar may have been a little too curious about the bridge, and he had no idea how that curiosity would catch up to him. This all ties into the theme because what Peyton perceives as safe at first ends up leading him to his death. Then next when he feels the pain of his swollen neck he still believes that he is alive, but it is eventually learned that he was

Farquhars sense of time and reality gets worse and worse throughout the story, his perception of reality gets thinner and thinner as time goes on. For example the strong, sharp sound, “what he heard was the ticking of his watch,” (Bierce 5). His watches strokes seemed to warp “with their greater infrequency,” (Bierce 4), These example play into the fact that Faruhars time is running out, his mind is making him aware of the little time he has left, making seconds seem like minutes warping his perception to make him grow insane. After all of this Farquhar was somehow met with peace as he stood “at the gate of his home… He sees a flutter of female garments: his wife looking fresh,” (Bierce 12). This was almost likely another way for his brain to just have him at peace right before his death, he was able to be home and see his wife one last time before he finally passed. Then just as he is about to greet his wife “he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon-then all is darkness and silence,” (Bierce 12). Up until this point Farquhar still believed he was alive, he believed that he had escaped and made it back home safely to his wife but, his luck finally caught up with him and after all “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek