Essay On Peyton Farquhar In Owl Creek Bridge

The connection we feel is when we travel into the mind of Peyton Farquhar. A family man protecting his home, Farquhar is deceived to burn down Owl Creek Bridge in an attempt to stop further advancement of the Union soldiers. Tricked by a Union scout disguised as a Confederate recommending to take this action Farquhar is faced with the consequences and is set to be hanged from the bridge. The scene where Farquhar is standing on a plank at the edge of a bridge with a noose tied around his neck is where Bierce begins to paint this emotional imagery of a helpless man who is awaiting death. As readers, we want do not want to see Farquhar executed for such an act, and Bierce now has our emotional attention. allowing us to see Farquhar's thoughts

In the same way as a dream is hard to differentiate between what is real and what is fiction Bierce's “occurrence” is parallel to the symptoms of a dream. Especially because in the story we are told ahead of time that Farquhar is dead, but we chose to ignore it because we still see signs of life in which pushes him in an attempt to escape. The story says, “As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge, he lost consciousness and was as one already dead”(pg 602). Bierce uses his literary techniques so well that he even tells us that the character is dead, but still manages to trick us into believing he is alive until the very end. On that very same page after having been told that he is dead Bierce says, “He was conscious of motion” and just like that we are sucked back into this illusion of forgetting the past and its reality. Hanging on the edge we are hoping to see Farquhar escape but there are obstacles that stand in the way. He rushes to the surface gasping for air and describing this intense fire and rush of pain he felt from the rope snapping around his neck. Another clue that his escape is not real, Farquhar’s senses become all to heightened even better than when he was alive. In the story, it says,