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How authors create suspense
How authors create suspense
How authors create suspense
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
More handpicked essays just for you.
How authors create suspense
How authors create suspense
How authors create suspense
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
He drove to the nearest pier and found a boat to take him out on the water to see the shearwaters. Once he finally sees the birds, he realized that Shearwaters can't live alone because when he saw the birds, they were making noise and the birds were in a flock. He realized he needs to be with his
A California town, outcasts, cheaters, a battle against nature and jumping frogs… that might sound like the premise for an epic novel, but these are a mix of elements from two separate short stories, The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte and The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County by Mark Twain. Harte’s story follows John Oakhurst, a professional gambler, who has become an outcast in the small California town of Poker Flats during the gold rush. His success as a gambler leads to a negative reputation and he is forced to leave the town along with a band of outcasts. A few conflicts arise, but none so severe as the blizzard that strikes them while they’re in the mountains. Oakhurst’s life of gambling success is long gone and all the bad luck he encounters leads him to suicide (Harte 674-684).
Ambrose Bierce uses characterization, irony, and foreshadowing to create forms of suspense in An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge. In part one of the story, Bierce creates suspense in the form of expectancy by characterizing who Peyton Farquhar is thought to be by directly telling what he looks like. He states: He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good--a straight nose, firm mouth...dark hair combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting coat...
Farquhar gets captured by the Union troops and he realizes that he’s going to die from getting hanged. Meanwhile, the noose is around Farquhar neck and he starts to daydream about the possibility of noose breaking and falling into the creek. He then escapes the Union troops, and finds himself back home where his wife awaits him. As soon as he tries to embrace his wife he is forced back into reality by being hanged.
He finally gets his hands untied using his “Superhuman strength” and as he ends his struggle "The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light.” This creates an image in the reader's head of his limp arms and body floating up to the surface towards the light. As Farquhar leaps toward his wife with wide arms, about to embrace her, he feels "a stunning blow upon the back of his neck" seeing a "blinding white light (blaze) all about him with a sound (...) of a cannon" then suddenly, "all is darkness and silence" (Bierce). This though, being the last sentence before the finale, it ties the whole story to and end with a final foreshadow. It helps foreshadow the events of Farquhar's final death because of the loud cannon shock, the darkness and silence, and finally the white light.
Robert Encrioc's short film "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is the adaption from the 1891 short story of the same name by Ambrose Bierce. The short film is part of a collection of Twilight Zone segments and originally aired as an episode in 1964. The premise of the film is that a Southern aristocrat during the Civil war is to be hanged by a group of Union soldiers on a bridge called Owl Creek Bridge. When the aristocrat is pushed off the bridge to hang; the rope around his neck snaps sending him splashing into the water below. He is able to free his bounded hands and legs underwater, and rises to the surface of the water.
Ambrose Bierce pulled us through a twisted tale of a confederate man, Peyton Farquhar, who is being hung for a crime that he had committed. Peyton, in the story, has this illusion that he escapes the threshold of death and is about to reach his wife until, just as he is about to embrace her, dies. The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge's surprise ending is shown through multiple occasions of foreshadowing, using suggestive language, and scenarios where it is too good to be true.
Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a criticism of time, and defining what is reality and a dream. The story travels from the past to the present, and reality and dream, causing the reader to question reality and dreams. The story starts off with a man standing on a railroad, with his wrist tied behind his back. He is awaiting his hanging execution.
In “An Occurance At Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce carefully hides the theme in ways that use detail, flashbacks, and conflict, forcing the reader to deeply analyze the text in order to find the qualities that make a story complete. There are many elements in this story that relate to humans and the way they act in real life, which the author put lots of thought into. He begins the story with specific detailing that starts
In “The Pit and the Pendulum”, the author manages to incorporate suspense into several parts of this story. One example is where it states, “I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence—the dread sentence of death—was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum.” This shows how the author created suspense by not telling the reader about why the narrator was receiving a death sentence.
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce tells the story of a man sentenced to death by hanging for his crimes. Throughout the story, we see how Farquhar copes with his situation by separating himself from reality. Bierce uses the symbolism of the environment around Farquhar, the composition of the story, and Farquhar’s character to portray his imminent fate and how Farquhar navigates through the realization he is going to die. Bierce purposefully tricks the reader into believing a false narrative to show that that is what Farquhar is doing to himself. (Linkin)
Suspense is what makes a book become an outstanding book. This is why Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, heaped suspense into the book. Interestingly, suspense is defined as a state or feeling of excited or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. Lee uses numerous literary techniques to develop suspense in the story. Two that she uses to employ suspense is cliffhangers and imagery.
(Bierce 323) This complex description persuaded me that perhaps, he had in fact made it. However, after taking to time to think rationally, I figured that Farquhar’s escape was impossible and the description of the escape was only fantasy. I considered factors such as the soldiers who would have had an easy shot as well as the immense height of the bridge and the velocity of the water below. The ending of the story, then confirmed my suspicions to be true as the text states “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.”
Ambrose Bierce 's “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is a short story illustrating the capture of a wealthy planter and slave owner in the midst of the Civil War. Ambrose Bierce uses the sense of time and illusion to go in greater depth of his multiple themes. Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” shows many different aspects of literary devices, setting, and theme to help develop the story about Peyton Farquhar and the alternative reality around him. A quick look at these multiple aspects will reveal how “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” achieves its dramatic effect. Literary devices play a very crucial role on helping develop Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
Guns cracking, cannons roaring, and the final plank of an execution is heard by spectators splashing into the water below during one of the most remarkable struggles in American history. The setting of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” takes place during the Civil War. Ambrose Bierce enlisted in the Civil War when he was eighteen. He uses this experience in his writing to create a more realistic setting for his short story. Bierce was a Confederate soldier, as is Peyton.