How do Bierce's deliberate decisions create suspense in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?

It is arguable that Bierce begins the suspense in the first section by describing Peyton Fahrquhar but omitting his name. He is described as looking like a kindly man, a planter, and readers wonder why a respectable citizen would be standing on a bridge with a noose around his neck and a relaxed expression on his face. The narrator observes that he is "no vulgar assassin," and so readers may be right to feel that a grave injustice is about to be committed. As the first section ends, the reader understands that Fahrquhar has a compelling reason to live: a wife and children within striking distance of the bridge. His thoughts turn toward escape, and the reader is engaged and hoping for a positive outcome.

The second section builds suspense when Fahrquhar is revealed to be a Confederate and a civilian eager to aid in the war effort. The plot he hatches with a visitor to burn the bridge sounds exciting, and the suspense is escalated when readers learn that the visitor is a Union scout and that Fahquhar has confided to the enemy, not an ally.

The final section contains suspense when readers are duped into believing that Fahrquhar has survived the hanging and the fall into the river and now has to worry about being shot. As he dodges bullets from the rifles of the men on the bridge, readers begin to feel sure that even if he is hit, Fahrquhar will not die in the water.

The final jolt of suspense happens as Fahrquhar reaches the gate of his home, wounded but alive, and reaches for his wife. Believing him to be home free, readers are stunned to read that it is instead the moment that he has been hanged and that his escape has been a mere mental projection as he faces death.

How do Bierce's deliberate decisions create suspense in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?

Frequently, when answering this question, readers focus on section 3 of the story. Farquhar miraculously falls from the bridge and "survives." We read through a harrowing escape filled with details that don't always seem exactly possible; however, we root for Farquhar to live no matter how far fetched the story seems to get. All of the escape details create suspense, but I tend to push readers toward the end of section 2 for the late dropping detail that creates a ton of suspense. The final lines of section 2 are specifically what I am referring to.

An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.

Knowing that the man was a Federal scout now secretly heading back to his own lines all of a sudden alerts readers to the fact that he was giving Farquhar false information. All of a sudden, readers are met with a sneaky suspicion that the unnamed man from section 1 just might be Farquhar, and he was baited into attempting his sabotage. There is a moment when we fear the worst about his ultimate fate, and then section 3 begins. At that moment, the story hits readers with an amazing amount of force because the first sentence confirms that Farquhar was indeed clandestinely baited and now he is falling to his death.

As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost
consciousness and was as one already dead.

How do Bierce's deliberate decisions create suspense in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?

By not revealing the truth, that Peyton Farquhar imagines the entirely of Part III in his head in the moments during which he falls from the bridge into the noose, until the very end of Part III, Bierce creates a great deal of suspense.  We get the sense that something is a little off when his sense of time slows down at the end of Part I and as he develops preternatural abilities to perceive details that human senses typically cannot or do not discern: the color of a man's eyes from quite far away, the flapping of insects' wings, dew sparkling on leaves, and so forth.  However, other details seem to suggest that Farquhar's experiences could be legitimate: mainly when he sees and hears the bullets whizzing past him underwater and when he feels the rope-burn around his neck (which would make sense if he was hanged and the rope broke).  Just as we are lulled into believing that he is about to reach his home, the rope becomes taught and his neck is broken.  By waiting to reveal this, Bierce leaves us in suspense for the majority of the story.

How do Bierce's choices in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" create suspense?

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 and "a rope closely encircled [around] his neck." The reader will also want to continue reading to find out if he is executed by the private soldiers who are serving as "his executioners," and, if so, for what crime.

The suspense created around the identity of the man with the noose around his neck is heightened by Bierce's subsequent description of the man's "kindly expression," and his acknowledgement that "this was no vulgar assassin" The crime that this man might have committed thus becomes all the more mysterious.

The condemned man, in paragraph five, becomes aware of a strange noise, "a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer." Bierce effectively keeps the reader in suspense here by describing the sound and the silences between each repetition of the sound in minute detail, until finally, at the end of the paragraph, he reveals that the sound was "the ticking of his watch."

At the end of the first part of the story, the condemned man thinks of escape. He thinks that if he could free his hands and "throw off the noose and spring to the stream," then he might be able to swim to safety and return again to his family. Introducing the possibility of escape at the end of the first part of the story creates suspense in the form of a cliff-hanger, as the reader will want to read the second part of the story to find out if, and if so how, the condemned man escapes.

The second part of the story begins with an embedded narrative, so that Bierce leaves the condemned man standing above the water while taking the reader back into the past to explain how he ended up there. This is an effective way to keep the readers in suspense, because we must now wait even longer to find out whether the condemned man is executed, or survives.

At the beginning of the third section, the condemned man, who we now know to be named Peyton Farquhar, falls to the water, resuming the narrative from where Bierce left it at the end of part one. The suspense in this part of the story is created by Peyton's struggle to stay alive in the water, as the reader will want to find out if Peyton survives.

In the penultimate paragraph of the story Bierce uses idyllic imagery to describe Peyton's return home. The scene is "bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine." His wife, "looking fresh and cool and sweet," greets him with "a smile of ineffable joy." Bierce perhaps deliberately uses hyperbolic, idyllic language here to suggest that this homecoming might be too good to be true, and so he creates suspense because the reader will be anxiously waiting for confirmation that this ending really is as happy as it seems.

Of course, the ending turns out not to be as happy as it seemed, as we discover in the final, short paragraph that Peyton's escape and homecoming was only a fantasy in his last moments, before he fell and his neck broke and his body, lifeless, "swung gently from side to side" beneath the bridge.

How do Bierce's choices in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" create suspense?

In Ambrose Bierce's story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the plot is filled with suspense. The first section shows Peyton being hanged on a bridge. This alone causes tension in the story because readers are witnessing an execution. The language Bierce uses to describe the soldiers and sentinels ("stonily," "motionless") brings tension to the story. The setting also has strong imagery. Bierce describes how the plank tilts over the "sluggish stream." He hears a "sharp, distinct, metallic, percussion" as he stands there. 

Bierce also creates suspense by stopping the narrative of the execution at the end of section I. The final line, "The sergeant stepped aside," leaves the reader without knowing what happened, which makes them want to continue on to find out. Bierce chooses other details which increase tension such as when shots are being fired at Peyton and he is spinning around in the water.  The final scene where Peyton can no longer feel the roadway under his feet amplifies the tone that Bierce has set from the beginning, making the shocking revelation that Peyton is dead all the more compelling.