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Use Of Flashback In An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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Heights and Depths

The short story “An occurrence at owl creek bridge” uses the literary device of flashbacks to develop depth in the plot and promote audience investment. The story is about a southern land owner named Peyton Farquhar who is being hung by Union soldiers during the civil war. In his final moments, he has several flashbacks and hallucinations from other times of his life that give the reader insight to his beliefs and his family. Ambrose Bierce’s use of flashbacks presents a theme of an augmented reality and the importance of perspective through providing background information showing Peyton’s motivations, his distorted perception of time, and to create tension and suspense in the plot.
Bierce uses flashbacks to provide critical …show more content…

The tension is built gradually as the first hallucination occurs. Hope is introduced when the audience is led to believe that he just might make it to freedom. The reader is led to believe the rope has snapped, he’s hit the water, risen to the surface and has gotten his hands untied. “What splendid effort!- what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! THe cord fell away; his arms parte dan floated upward…” (Beirce par. 19). This sense of hope keeps the reader engaged and invested in the story. The final example of Beirce adding suspense through flashbacks is when he makes it end so suddenly. “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge” (Beirce par. 37). The audience is pushed back into the present moment. Shocked and in disbelief. This sudden shift back to the present creates a jarring effect. It emphasizes how distorted Farquhar’s perception of time is and also the absoluteness of his fate. THis tossing around of the chronological events leaves the reader hungry for a more positive ending. The impact is sharp and

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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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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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In this way, it is perceived that the entirety of the narrative takes place in the span that it takes for the rope to catch Mr. Farquhar's fall, the barest second. This represents the dilation of time throughout the story, allowing the experience of the main character to stretch out for a seemingly long amount of time, as it did in the past, but in effect, is only iterated for a second. Bierce utilizes two different techniques to disrupt the linear timestream in his short story The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The duration of Mr. Farquhar’s experience is stretched over an extended period of time, and, yet fused with the present.

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In the short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce, the author tells the story of a man named Peyton Farquhar who was hanged for his crimes and being a Confederate saboteur. Within seconds of being hung, Farquhar imagines himself surviving being hung and escaping to his family. Ultimately, he actually dies since it was only a manipulation of reality. Besides the fact of his death, Time is an idea that it clearly present in the story and demonstrates an important role. Time plays an important role in the story by displaying how extraordinary the mind can do in a short period of time, that 8 manipulation of time does not remove one from reality and Farquhar’s lack of control of events.

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However, one also used this same strategy as a way to deviate from reality, while the other used it as a way to face reality. Imagery was used to illustrate that An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’s Peyton

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In conclusion, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” demonstrates several foreshadowing techniques to predict Farquhar’s fate, such as imagery and preternatural plot elements. The preternatural ability to hear a watch ticking at a vociferous volume reveals that Farquhar was simply imagining that his time is ticking away. Also, the use of imagery when he is unnaturally describing the distant trees in great detail shows that he is dreaming about that as well and not living in reality, so he has not escaped the fact that he will die in real

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In the short story An Occupancy at Owl Creek Bridge a man is moments from being hanged by federal soldiers. One does not know why this is happened because there is a flashback that occurs later in the story that tells the reader why he is being hanged. This short story was written by Ambrose Bierce in 1890. This story describes death by setting it on a timer, creating suspense leading up to it, and telling what the man Peyton sees right before he dies. The author drags the death of Peyton Farquhar out so that one can understand the full effects of death, reaction to death, and understand how fast it can happen.

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