An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge Foreshadowing Essay

In the short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, written by Ambrose Bierce, he tells the story of white southerner during the American Civil War who has committed a crime against the Union and is punished to death by hanging. Throughout the short story Bierce takes us the readers on a journey through northern Alabama filled with suspense and foreshadowing. Through the entire short story Bierce uses many different types of foreshadowing to anticipate the fate of the main character. Bierce foreshadows the ending of the story in three ways, 1.) Peyton Farquhar’s heightened senses, 2.) at the commencement of part III he expresses that Peyton Farquhar is already dead, and 3.) Bierce uses inmediares to convey foreshadowing to us the readers. “He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw

At the introduction of part III, Bierce conveys that Farquhar “was one already dead.” At first glance readers would overlook this minute detail but after a second read through we understand that Bierce was conveying to us that Farquhar was dead. In this type of foreshadowing, Bierce suttlely tell the readers that he is dead but most readers overlook that. Beyond the two mentioned, another example of foreshadowing in this short story is that Bierce uses inmediares. Inmediares is when an author starts a story in the middle, then flashes back to prior to the action, and brings it back to the present. Bierce’s use of inmediares in this short story creates a sense of foreshadowing by mixing up the order of the story to further explain why Peyton is in this situation. The rearrangement of the story's order creates foreshadowing by explaining what is currently happening, then explaining what happened prior to that, and finally finished up the