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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
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
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...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In the first section of the story, a man is contemplating family and his surroundings during the waning moments prior to his death sentence. Here, he perceives time subjectively. For him, during...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Farquhar was “ardently devoted to the Southern cause.” According to the story, he was unable to join the army, for reasons untold by the narrator. Farquhar, however, was eager to aid the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
"An Occurrence at Owl Breek Bridge" is set during the American Civil War, when the North and South fought over many things, but most importantly, slavery. The main character of the story, Peyton...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
I would say one of the themes is fantasy versus reality. Although we would like to think Peyton Farquhar will escape, and he pretends he does, the reality is that he is actually hanged.
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
We can tell that Peyton Farquhar is not a federal soldier because it tells us more than once that he is not. First, we are told that he is a civilian. Second, we are told that he was from a rich...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Some would say the the illusion begins in the first part. Near the end of it, he about to be hanged and he he focuses on the piece of wood slowly drifting down the stream--as if it's in slow...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The bridge is important to the story for many reasons, including the following: The bridge is the target, the objective, the bone of contention. It provides the motivation for the protagonist,...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Besides the obvious similarity of both being set during American Wars ("Bridge" during The Civil War, and "Carried" during the Vietnam War), a more subtle relation can be made between Peyton...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
In "Bridge," Bierce foreshadows the imaginary nature of Farquhar's escape mainly through imagery and minute detail. The protagonist's eyes are not covered in Part 1 of the story, and so the reader...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a story of romanticism versus realism and as such is characteristic of Ambrose Bierce's cynical outlook on life in general. Peyton Farquhar is a Southern...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
As Peyton Farquhar is being shot at, he supposedly sees the shooter's eye "gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle," which would actually have been quite remarkable, considering the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
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...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
When Peyton Farquhar is awaiting the fall that will snap his neck in the noose, his perception of time changes, and, therefore, ours seem to as well since it is his thoughts and feelings that the...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
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...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The reason Peyton Farquhar is not a soldier, officer, or part of the army is not given. The author says only that "circumstances of an imperious nature which it is unneccessary to relate...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
The human antagonist(s) in Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" would have to be the Union soldiers who are about to hang the protagonist, Peyton Farquar. The Union soldiers are...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
As Peyton dreams of his escape and his fantasized safety on the shore, he gleefully digs his hands into the sand and thinks that it "look[s] like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
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...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
It is not a flattering description of these soldiers. At the center of the bridge, a man is about to die for his beliefs, for trying to stand up for his principles. Neither we (I should hope) nor...
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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Bierce's short story received rave, and not-so-rave reviews for its unusual approach, which leads the reader to believe there will be a "happy ending" in a story where it will turn out the...
