Examples Of Foreshadowing In An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

The Death of The Dead The short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce takes place in “northern Alabama” during the Civil War. The protagonist of the story is Payton Farquhar, who is described as “a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family”. Farquhar believed that “No service was too humble for him to perform in aid of the South…” and he had “…the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier”. One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting “on a rustic bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up to the gate and asked for a drink of water”. Being the soldier at heart, Farquhar inquired about news from the front. The soldier told Farquhar the “Yanks” have reached

The reader is informed that Farquhar is standing on a plank of wood, which is being held by the sergeant of the Federalist, and “At a signal from the former the latter would step aside, the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two ties”. Although the reader presumes the man, which is later revealed to be Farquhar, is dead Bierce still continues short story about Payton Farquhar’s grand escape from his death. Bierce states that “…he (Farquhar) knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream” eluding his death. Ironically Bierce also adds that “His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly” which are indications of strangulation and lack of oxygen according to “rightdiagnosis.com”. Another example of foreshadowing is at the very end of the short story. In the last scene Farquhar has made it to his plantation, and right before he hugs his wife with extended arms “…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”. The stunning blow to the back of his neck is implied to be Farquhar’s neck breaking, and the blinding white light refers to the cliché phrase of seeing the light before one’s death. Lastly, the darkness and silence are symbols of