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How Does Bierce Use Irony In An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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Ambrose Bierce wrote An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, throughout this short story he uses literary techniques to foreshadow and create a shock effect. Bierce wanted there to be shock in the story to help with the suspense towards the end. Bierce’s main character, Peyton Fahrquhar, is sentenced to death. The short story starts out on a bridge for Fahrquhar’s death. Throughout this story there is a lot of detail, so we can understand the story better and so the readers can receive more shock and suspense. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Bierce uses symbolism, a literary technique, to help readers to foreshadow. One example of symbolism is Fahrquhar’s watch. The soldiers take his watch and when this happens it symbolizes the soldier taking away Fahrquhar’s time. Another example, there is a soldier with grey eyes and Fahrquhar has grey eyes. Grey eyes are symbolizing a line between reality and fantasy. The last example is soldiers are trying to shoot at Fahrquhar but they keep missing, this symbolizes Fahrquhar getting his hopes that he will get away. …show more content…

One example of irony is Fahrquhar is dropped into Owl Creek and he is underwater for a long period of time, this creates shock and suspense by not knowing when he will die or if he will get to the surface in time to live. Another example is near the end of the story Fahrquhar is running and he thinks he got away and he is footsore. The last example is when he finally rises to the surface of the water and notices that his sense have been amplified, he sees every bug, the soldiers grey eyes, and he also mentions seeing a drop of dew on a leaf in one of the trees. Irony plays a huge factor in this short story because it helps create more shock and suspense than most literary

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