"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" - Ambrose Bierce

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, is a short story about a man that was sympathetic with the Confederates. A Union spy had disguised himself as a Confederate and had told Peyton Fahrquhar, an Alabama native, that the Union was trying to fix up an old railroad bridge. The spy also declared that Fahrquhar could probably stop the Union soldiers, because there was a large pile of wood that could be burned to prevent the workers from being able to do anything. Fahrquhar believed the spy, so he attempted to stop the work. Unfortunately, the spy obviously told him wrong, so Fahrquhar was quickly caught. The Union soldiers were going to hang Fahrquhar because of what he had done, and so he begins to daydream. Fahrquhar begins to imagine that he has been dropped from the bridge, and when he starts to fall, the rope breaks so he falls straight into the river. He dreams that his hands free themselves of their own accord, and then they quickly take the noose off of his neck. He then floated to the surface, dodged a great number of bullets, even though one grazed his neck, and was thrown onto ground. He quickly scrambled into the forest and traveled for hours. He walked and walked all day long, but he could find no where that the forest ended. Eventually, close to nightfall, he found a road that seemed like a city street, except that it was not paved. Somehow, he intuitively knew that this road would take him to where he wanted to go. He finally got back to his house and his wife met him at the door, smiling and about to welcome him. He opens his arms to embrace her when suddenly he feels a huge pain in the back of his neck and we find out that it was all a daydream and he was actually hanged. This short story was accepted well, and it seemed as though while a great number of people really enjoyed the story, an equal amount of people did not know what to do with it. They claimed that the end of the story was not real and should not be included with the rest of it. Many people thought that Bierce did a great job of explaining the psychology behind the story, and claim that it led to other psychological fiction. Some critics really enjoy the way Ambrose Bierce manipulated the language that he used. They say that he placed quite a few clues in the story to show that Fahrquhar's imaginings were just that. They also love the way that he manipulated time and perspective to make one unsure of what was really happening. A number of people believed that he had really escaped, only to find out that he had really only imagined it all and had been hanged. The different perspectives also helped with the twists in the story, and the time changes also help complicate everything. There are many different ways that this story could have gone, but the ending, while very surprising, was still satisfactory.

"Ambrose Bierce An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Criticism." ENotes - Literature Study Guides, Lesson Plans, and More. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .

"An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce; III Page 4." Page By Page Books. Read Classic Books Online, Free. Web. 17 Jan. 2011. .