Discussion Topic
Who is the antagonist in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"?
I have stated elsewhere my view that in a story of this type the protagonist and antagonist are great powers whose conflict affects the fates of unimportant individuals like Peyton Farquhar (who seems modeled after John Wilkes Booth). The protagonist and antagonist in my view would be the North and the South. Since the North seems to have the momentum at this point in the Civil War, I would choose the North as the protagonist and the South as the antagonist. The Union officers and soldiers do not seem to be acting as individuals but as pawns being moved by some invisible force above and beyond them. Even Peyton Farquhar seems to be moved by something he only vaguely understands. Hundreds of thousands of men fought and killed each other without hating each other or really understanding why they were fighting. It seems to me that this was the feeling...
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thatAmbrose Bierce--famous as a cynic, pessimist and nihilist--was trying to capture in his story.
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 Farquar's direct enemies, and with the lack of other characters in the story, there can be little debate on this question. (The Union spy who tricked Farquar could also be considered a minor antagonist.) It could also be argued that the hangman's noose serves as an antagonist: It is the rope that Farquar hopes to somehow evade as he stands upon the railroad trestle awaiting his fate. And it is the rope that eventually serves as the instrument of his death.
Who is the protagonist in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce?
I have edited your question to deal exclusively with "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," in accordance with eNotes policy of answering only one question per posting.
Ambrose Bierce's story deals with a minor incident that occurs during the Civil War. Peyton Farquhar must be considered the protagonist, since he is the only major character in the story. He makes the decision to try to destroy the Owl Creek Bridge and finds that he has walked into a trap. The reader is locked inside Farquhar's consciousness from the very beginning, when he is standing on the bridge with a noose around his neck, to the very end, when the slack runs out and the rope breaks his neck. The real time involved is only seconds, but it seems like many hours to the protagonist.
The antagonist is not identified, but the reader can assume that the senior officer in command of the detechment of Union troops guarding the bridge was the one who set the trap to catch any Southern sympathizer and is therefore the antagonist.