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Essay On Peyton Farquhar In Owl Creek Bridge

1950 Words8 Pages

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 …show more content…

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,

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Literary analysis of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” Ambrose Bierce, the Author of “An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge” about a man who was being hanged, throughout the story Peyton hallucinates and thinks that he has escaped the hanging but in reality he’s dying. Bierce uses symbolism in “ An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to foreshadow that Peyton is going to die. There are multiple allusions throughout the story that Bierce used to convey the death of Peyton. Imagery is used throughout the entire story to show that Peyton is hallucinating. Throughout the entire story Bierce uses multiple literary techniques to foreshadow Peyton’s death.

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Farquhar’s efforts to escape his inevitable fate for the briefest of moments, “he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck... then all is darkness and silence!” (Bierce 8) This represents the final fusion between the narratives. His neck has most likely broken from the fall and his body has asphyxiated, leading to death. While recounting his assumed escape, the author introduces the main character's death in a seemingly abrupt fashion, when Mr. Farquhar has actually been dead for a greater span of time.

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He provides hints throughout the story that lead readers to think these events aren’t possible. Section III is where the majority of these hints are given. Words like “seemed” and “thought” are found throughout section III. These words give the reader no reassurance of what Farquhar is actually aware of. If he is just “thinking” something is happening, why would you think it’s real?

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Farquhar was able to deviate away from the reality of his death through his vivid imagination. He escaped all the pain that he otherwise would have felt. Upon falling down the bridge, his defense mechanism kicked in and led him to imagine an escape he desired. He didn’t feel any pain for he quickly “lost consciousness and was as one already dead.” He was not in fear during his last moments because he believed that “despite his suffering … he now (stood) at the gate of his own home.”

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