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An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge Short Story

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The short stories, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “Chickamauga” by Ambrose Bierce are two completely different stories but similar at the same time, they have the same stylistic techniques and they impact the reader in a similar manner. The first story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, takes place during the American civil war where a wealthy slave owner is being hung for his sympathy towards the confederate soldiers. In the second story “Chickamauga”, a young boy wanders into the woods with a toy sword to “fight” his enemies. These two stories have several similarities, they both take place during the civil war, the stories emphasize the connection between reality and fantasy, they’re also violent and tragic stories. In both of …show more content…

Sometimes imagery makes a story more eerie, exciting or intense. In “Chickamauga” Bierce made his first story more shocking with this quote, “There, conspicuous in the light of the conflagration, lay the dead body of a woman--the white face turned upward, the hands thrown out and clutched full of grass, the clothing deranged, the long dark hair in tangles and full of clotted blood. The greater part of the forehead was torn away, and from the jagged hole, the brain protruded, overflowing the temple, a frothy mass of gray, crowned with clusters of crimson bubbles--the work of a shell ” ( Bierce, “Chickamauga”). The boy in the story just found his mother’s dead body.This example of imagery made this very dramatic and shocking because the reader can envision what is happening in their head. Imagery like this makes the reader want to know more about what just happened and due to this they get absorbed by the story. Other examples of imagery aren’t as shocking, they can just make the scene more thrilling. In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Bierce uses examples such as, “The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the ripples in his ears ” (Bierce, “Occurrence”). This type of imagery is used to make the reader anxious about the character and what’s going to happen to him. The reader feels like they are in the story with the

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Rogelio Ochoa Freed Period 2 Feb 8, 2023 Perception of Owl Creek Bridge One may see something as they want it to be instead of how it really is. The story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce takes place in Alabama. Peyton Farquhar the protagonist of Beirce’s story is a man who is to be hanged and takes place on Owl Creek Bridge. Farquhar was told that anyone who tried interfering with the railroad construction that was happening on the bridge would be hanged.

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"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" begins with the capture of the protagonist Peyton Farquhar, a plantation and slave owner. Bierce paints a vivid picture of the surroundings around Farquhar as he awaits to be hanged. It then flashes back to the days leading up to the hanging. Where Farquhar was deceived by a federal spy claiming to be a confederate soldier. In the end, we see Farquhar escape from reality as he is serving his sentence to finally his demise.

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Many were unsupportive of war, especially the Civil War, and when it erupted writers attacked the ideology and logic of the violence. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, follows the imagination of a Confederate citizen who is executed for attempting to burn a bridge. The story captures his final thoughts and outlines his plan for escape, though it is never enacted. Bierce advises his readers to stay out of dangerous situations which do not affect their personal lives, in particular, events that only serve to boost their ego. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Bierce uses figurative language to highlight his disapproval of military and war, meanwhile critiquing the main character’s decision to be involved with violence.

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Same Technique, Different Purpose Descriptive scenery or imagery is used throughout literature for a variety of purposes. It can be used to paint a mental picture of the setting, to portray symbols, or even to relay themes. The authors Ambrose Bierce and Edgar Allan Poe exemplify the use of the same technique, descriptive scenery, to deliver different purposes. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce and The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe both use imagery in order to characterize characters and foreshadow events.

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How do you cope with the reality of day to day life? I would like to think I handle the reality of day to day life moderately well like everyone else. However, I began to question myself once again as I read Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” This story, with its unexpected ending, had me rereading it several times to pull out key details that led me down the wrong path the first time.

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