An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

In Section II of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the scout who is posing as a Confederate soldier tells Peyton Farquhar: "The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere,...

Another example of foreshadowing in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is to be found in what is going through Peyton Farquhar's mind as he is standing on the bridge with a noose around his neck...

Ambrose Bierce provides most of the background exposition in a flashback in Part II of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." It can be seen in the interchange between Farquhar and the Federal scout...

Based on what the Federal scout tells Peyton Farquhar in part II of the story, we have to make some assumptions, because we are never told explicitly why this man is being hanged. The Federal scout...

The story is set during the American Civil War, so one external conflict that is present is the conflict that is raging between the Union and the Confederacy. The war was over many things, but the...

Throughout the short story, Peyton Farquhar is waiting to be hanged by the Union soldiers stationed at Owl Creek bridge. While Peyton is getting ready to die, he reflects on his life and dreams...

In section two of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the literary device Ambrose Bierce uses is flashback. Section one of the story describes a scene in which a man is about to be hanged from a...

In the second section of the short story, Bierce writes that a Union spy disguised as a Confederate soldier arrives at Peyton Fahrquhar's estate to ask for a drink of water. The Union spy then...

As Ambrose Bierce's “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” opens, we see a man standing on a railroad bridge with his wrists bound and a rope around his neck. He is about to be hanged by Union...

By presenting the story in the order he does, and by changing the perspective of the narration, Bierce skillfully draws readers along so that he is able to trick them into believing that the action...

Ambrose Bierce's views of the war as reflected in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” appear to be that war should not be romanticized. He seems to understand the futility of war and the insanity...

The setting that readers are first introduced to is a railroad bridge over a river or stream in northern Alabama. The events of the story are taking place during the American Civil War, which took...

In Part 1 of the story, a third-person limited omniscient point of view is employed. This means that the narrator can only report the thoughts and feelings of one character, and that character is...

The main irony in this story is situational irony. Situational irony occurs when some kind of difference is exposed between what is expected to happen and what really happens. In other words, what...

In part two, the internal conflict is revealed when Bierce elaborates on Peyton Farquhar's inner struggle to participate in the Civil War. Having an aristocratic southern background prevents...

In the beginning of Part 3 of this story, Peyton Farquhar is getting hanged. He is being hanged because he has tried to sabotage the bridge. He gets hung, but the rope breaks and he falls into the...

The non-traditional layout of Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Occurrence at Owl Bridge" definitely makes it more difficult to identify all of the plot structure elements. The climax is...

Literary realism describes reality through details that include mundane items and everyday experiences as they occur in the real world. The genre seeks to stay as close to the truth or accurate...

The narrator of Ambrose Bierce's short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" knows everything about the protagonist, Peyton Farquhar: who he is, what he does, and what he thinks and feels. The...

The mood shifts according to the point-of-view in "An Occurrence at Owl Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. As the story opens the mood is stoic; the scene portrayed reads more like a report of how the...

Part 2 is a flashback where we learn about Farquhar’s background. Descended from a family of the Old South, he is a wealthy plantation and slave owner. Sadly (but for reasons not explained) unable...

This is perhaps Bierce's most well known Civil War story, in part because because of a "Twilight Zone" production of it in the late 1950s or early 1960s, and it has remained popular for its...

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is neatly divided into three sections, the first and last longer and the middle one shorter. Section two provides the explanation of how and why the protagonist,...

In unfolding "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," Ambrose Bierce narrates action through both outside observation (third-person narration) and Farquhar’s own thoughts (interior monologue). Bierce...

This is a very interesting question. No doubt Ambrose Bierce himself considered writing the tale in chronological order but decided against it. For one thing, he would have had to sacrifice the...

The narrator tells us that Peyton Farquhar is a wealthy plantation owner who ardently supports the Confederate cause against the Union Army. Despite his affinity for the Confederacy and his...

Ambrose Bierce utilizes third person limited narration as well as third person objective narration throughout Part Three of the short story. Third person limited point of view is when the narrator...

By telling the events of the story out of chronological order, Ambrose Bierce sets the scene for the reader, establishes the stakes, and creates the opportunity for a surprise ending. The story of...

Ambrose Bierce’s short story “Owl Creek Bridge” draws much of its eerie power from the way it uses universal symbols. Bierce takes deeply evocative symbols—such as the bridge, the water, the...

In this story set during the Civil War, there is one reference made to "military etiquette," which I assume is the focus of your question. It comes in the first section as the soldiers prepare...

A great deal of the story's narration is about Farquhar being swept downstream away from the soldiers shooting at him. Farquhar will eventually be washed onto the shore, and the very first thing...

You are right to identify that Bierce uses narration in a very interesting way in this famous story. For example, in section 3, the point of view shifts to the third-person-limited point of view...

The first and most obvious example of naturalism in "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is the narrator's commitment to detachment. Without question, the death experienced by the primary character...

Creating the standard plot chart for this story isn't quite as straightforward as it is for other short stories. The reason for this is because the story isn't told chronologically. A fairly...

The passage to which you are referring is Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud plash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all...

There are three parts as mentioned already, and each section varies in point of view, with interesting uses of this literary element. In the first section, the omniscient narrator is employed, so...

Peyton Farquhar dies beneath the Owl Creek Bridge. He was captured and hanged for trying to sabotage and destroy the bridge so that that the Union army could not use it. The story is great, and...

In Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the irony of the statement to which Farquhar agrees, "all is fair in love and war" is situational irony. That is, there is discrepancy...

Mrs. Farquhar plays a significant role in the story even though she speaks no lines of dialogue. Interestingly, she serves to make Farquhar both a more sympathetic character and a less sympathetic...

In his story, Ambrose Pierce DOES use omnisicient narrator; he just does not use it throughout the story. In the different sections, there are variations in point of view: omniscient, in which...

Ambrose Bierce implies several things about the psychology of the human mind in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge". One is that the mind essentially creates its own reality, especially in a moment...

Stream of consciousness is a literary technique that focuses on the flow of thoughts within the minds of characters rather than objective linear narrative. The term was first described in The...

In part 2 of the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," Ambrose Bierce provides significant insight into Peyton Farquhar's background, social status, political loyalties, and motivations....

Bierce's choice of an opening scene immediately creates suspense, as the reader will want to know the identity of the man who stood twenty feet above the water with his hands tied behind his back...

At the beginning of Part III, " . . . Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge[,] he lost consciousness and was as one already dead." After this, the narrator says that he was...

The shift to the present tense in the penultimate paragraph gives a sense of immediacy to Peyton Farquar's experience. But it's not the immediacy of reality; instead, it's the immediacy of a dream....

One of the most important events in the story is Peyton Farquhar's execution. He's hanged from a bridge by Union soldiers for conspiring to commit an act of sabotage, a very serious crime in...

Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," which, along with many of his Civil War stories, came out of his own experience as a Captain of topographical engineers (map makers) in the federal...

Yes, the author certainly intended Peyton Farquhar's escape to be believable. That is the heart and soul of the story. The reader identifies with Farquhar and shares his thoughts and feelings in...

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...