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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In his story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce disrupts normal chronological order, placing news of the successful hanging – which takes place very early in purely chronological...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
One could say that "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" deals with the damaging effects of war on the human mind. Ordinarily, Peyton Farquhar would be living a normal, peaceful life with his wife on...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The story does make use of symbols, beginning with the setting, which is on the railroad bridge. In this case, the bridge specifically is a symbol. Some commentators believe that author Ambrose...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Peyton Farquhar's death cannot be revealed until the end of the story because so much of the story— almost the entirety of part 3—happens in the moment just before his neck snaps in the noose. In...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
I think there is a main theme about time and how the perception of its passage is fluid. I'm quite certain most people have experienced how time seems to "fly" at certain times and "crawl" at...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," obvious examples of realistic detail are the setting of the Civil War with the enmity existing between the two sides fighting. This description of the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Parts of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" are narrated from a strictly objective point of view by what is customarily called a third-person omniscient narrator, presumably the author Ambrose...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce seems to feel that all war is wasteful, unnecessary, and brutal. His narrator's subtle judgment of Peyton Farquhar's assent "to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The tension of what happens to Peyton in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is conveyed through the words that the author uses and how Peyton’s predicament is presented immediately. In the very...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
At the beginning of the famous short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, a man is bound and about to be hanged from a railroad bridge by soldiers of the Union Army during...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Bierce uses auditory imagery throughout the short story to create an atmosphere of immediacy, violence, and tension. The sounds are loud, graphic, and startling. The protagonist, Peyton Farquhar,...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Naturalism in literature describes situations when human characters are victims, or subjected to, the dictates of their natural and social environments. These characters face things which are...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
An interesting narrative technique Ambrose Bierce uses in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is the flashback presented in Part II. Part I describes the setting and the preparation of the hanging,...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
We do not know with absolute certainty that the protagonist, Peyton Farquhar, is dreaming in part 3 until the very end, when his neck snaps in the noose, though there are many helpful clues. At the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Comparing these two deaths is an interesting writing prompt, as it would likely be better to contrast the two deaths. Sullivan Ballou was a Rhode Island lawyer and politician. During the Civil War,...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In the first paragraph of the story, the narrator refers to the "Federal army" and describes a captain and two privates, both of which are ranks within an army. Federal army is another way of...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
There is a certain surreal quality to Peyton Farquhar's feelings as he is about to be hanged. He notes that the method used to hang him is "simple and effective," and he looks around at his...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce uses the bridge as a symbol in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." The bridge in question is a "railroad bridge in northern Alabama" and serves as a focal point of the story....
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The three sections of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" differ in their points of view: the first section is in Omniscient point of view, the second is in Objective point of view, and the third...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
You have two kinds of narration, first person and third person. In first person, a character in the story is telling it, giving the reader only his/her thoughts and feeling about the other...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Farquhar and his wife greet the weary stranger with open arms. As die-hard supporters of the Confederate cause, they're only too happy to help out someone they believe to be on the same side. The...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Stream of consciousness narrations are often characterized by a lack of clarity between one thought and the next, the absence of punctuation and/or capitalization, perhaps even varied and...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
While the story does not take enslaved persons as its subject, it seems to me to be a mistake to suggest that Bierce ignores the existence of these individuals. Early in the second part of the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge," A planter in his mid-30s is standing on a railroad bridge. Six military men and a company of infantry men are present. The man is to be...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
I think that a reader can find two distinct portrayals of the Union army in this story. The first portrayal is fairly positive. Ranks are given, and crisp narration lets readers know that the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
I did not, upon first reading this story, foresee how it would end, specifically, but I did develop the sense that something was not quite "right," that something was not as it seemed as I was...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce's Civil War stories are well known for their shocking endings, and "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" provides such an ending. His characterization techniques vary according to the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The irony in this short story lies in the presentation of thje character of Peyton Farquhar in the second section of this story. There is a deliberate discrepancy between Farquhar's notions of what...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
It isn't certain that this was all just a dream until right at the end of the story. But before then, there are one or two clues. For one thing, we're told that Payton lost consciousness before he...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The external structure of this story, with its division into three parts, is complicated. Because the events do no unfold in chronological order, the exposition-through-denouement pattern is also...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The story's ending is so shocking in some ways that the reader must first come to terms with what has happened to Peyton Farquhar. It turns out that almost the entirety of part 3 of the story has...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Peyton Fahrquhar is a staunch supporter of the Confederacy during the Civil War and is devoted to the South's cause, which is why he attempts to burn down the Owl Creek Bridge after receiving...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (La Rivière du hibou), written and directed by Robert Enrico, is a 1961 film adaption of the 1890 Ambrose Bierce short story by the same name. Presented with an...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" exudes drama as it tells the story of Peyton Farquhar, a planter escaping his execution with seemingly supernatural luck. This...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Peyton Farquhar's wife is a minor character, but Ambrose Bierce felt the need to introduce her and give her a small part to play in the story. Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In part I of the short story, Peyton Farquhar stands on an unstable wooden board on the Owl Creek Bridge, twenty feet above the rushing water with a noose around his neck. As Peyton is awaiting his...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In Part I, we are introduced to Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner and secessionist very much devoted to the Southern cause, just as he is about to be executed by some Union soldiers. Just when...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Generally speaking, the setting of a story is the time and physical location. The text of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" never gives an actual date to the story. The reader is able to know...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Whether you believe Peyton Farquhar was a good person or not may depend to some degree on whether you favor the cause of the Union or the cause of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. In Part...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
An idiot? Definitely not. "Foolhardy"? Possibly. A novice in the field of espionage? Undoubtedly. Farquhar is willing to do anything he can to help the cause of the Confederacy, and he hopes this...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Peyton Farquhar is definitely a Southerner, a Confederate sympathizer and staunch supporter of the South in the Civil War, but he is a civilian plantation owner at the time of the story which takes...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
These three elements can be helpfully combined to focus on the way that life is viewed against a backdrop of war. Putting aside the major theme of Peyton Farquhar's flight of fantasy that allows...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In Part II of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" the Union scout posing as a Confederate soldier tells Peyton Farquhar: The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere, declaring...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is styled as the encapsulated thoughts and memories of a man doomed to die. The common phrase "his life flashed before his eyes" shows to great effect here, as...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The antagonists are the Union forces that tricked Peyton into trying to blow up the bridge. Through flashback, Bierce writes about an incident that occurred a few days before the story opens. A man...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
An unidentified man is standing on a railroad bridge (presumably the Owl Creek Bridge) in northern Alabama. He is about to be hanged: His hands are bound and tied, and his neck is in a noose, which...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Your question is a bit unclear, but I assume you are referring to the main elements of the three parts of the Ambrose Bierce short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." In Part I, Peyton...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
This is a great psychological tale set in the midst of the Civil War. The main character is called Peyton Farquhar, who is a wealthy Confederate planter who has been lured by a Union spy into...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
There are two hints in Part I of the story that Peyton's mind is playing tricks on him seconds before he dies. Standing on the bridge, his hands tied and the rope around his neck, Peyton looks down...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
If Peyton Farquhar's experience is any indication of Bierce's views on death, then one would expect him to believe that just before death we experience a sense of freedom and joy. We also feel a...
