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Archetypes In An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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According to the dictionary, humanity is “the quality or state of being humane” (Merriam-Webster). Being humane says that we should be compassionate and generous. This is how we should be treating others, yet during times of war and strife it often seems that humanity is thrown out, leaving people in a primal state. This affects not only the soldiers actively taking part in the war effort but also those seemingly innocent bystanders. In the short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce, the author portrays a semi-omniscient narrator prescribing one such innocent. The various archetypes introduced through the settings, the temporal symbolisms, the colors, and the character types help to analyze the final thought processes of …show more content…

Unlike most archetypal stories, he does not demonstrate the characteristics of “the hero.” Instead, he portrays the farmer and the scapegoat. The farmer is a cultivator and a grower of things. In this story, Peyton’s occupation is that of “a well to do planter… a slave owner… [and] a politician” (Bierce 2). Each of these roles cultivates something. As a planter, he cultivates produce, as slave owner he cultivates future slaves, and as politician he cultivates laws. The cultivator often provides sage advice for the protagonist. This sage advice generally is simple and straightforward, much like the archetypal farmer that gives voice to it. Peyton also is the scapegoat, due to following his own advice and that of a Northern spy that informs him of the bridge’s existence. The scapegoat is the person upon “whose death in a public ceremony expiates some taint or sin of a community” (Archetypes 5). Scapegoats are an unfortunate aspect of life since many people refuse to take responsibility for their own actions, needing to place the blame on others. While Peyton does not quite fit this exactly, since he is paying for his own crimes, his death by public hanging expiates the surrounding populace from his possible sabotage. Dual archetypes, and more often more, are present within all people; no person is a but one single

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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was a story written by Ambrose Bierce. He wrote it to be a suspenseful and confusing short story. The suspense brought on by Bierce employed to clench one's attention throughout this short story by using numerous literary techniques. With his use of imagery Bierce displayed that, in his mind, Farquhar, while being hanged, still had all of his thoughts and he believed that he was escaping the army, bringing suspense to the story. Farquhar thought that the rope had snapped and that he had fallen into the water, he imagined himself escaping the military by swimming away.

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While reading the 5 fiction short stories there became a common pattern between 3 stories and the characters in them. These stories are “The Rocking Horse Winner” by D.H. Lawrence, “I Stand Here Ironing” by Tillie Olsen, and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”. Every character has the mindset to possibly fulfill their goals to better and/or change their lives. “The Rocking Horse Winner” is about a boy named Paul who wants to win his mother’s love and attention. By giving her the life she always wanted.

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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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Shadows of Death In the story, Peyton Farquhar dies, but as a reader, we do not learn this fact until the very end. Ambrose Bierce hides this fact until the end by providing an adventure through the mind of a dying Peyton Farquhar. Along the incredible journey of “escape”, Bierce alludes to the inevitable end to which the reader is captured by the idea that Peyton Farquhar could actually get away. The short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” has several literary techniques that capture the reader’s attention.

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