An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge Mood Analysis

The setting was the most important element in the three stories we have read for the last month or so. The setting set the mood for each story before it even began. The first story we read was, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. The second story we read was “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. Lastly, we read “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allen Poe.

In the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, the setting changed frequently and in turn, it changed the mood as well. In the beginning the mood was rather gloomy. When Bierce wrote “The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age.” A humane human would not be joyful that someone was being hanged, unless that victim has wronged them. Bierce bluntly stated that the middle-aged man was being hanged. He didn’t state what the man was being hanged for either until later on which left readers wondering what he possibly could’ve done to deserve such a fate.

The story took an upbeat turn and transitioned into an exciting mood when Bierce wrote, “The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of

In the Montresor family Catacombs, it is a dark, damp, and maze-like place, not to mention underground as well. The quote, “We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling into the inmost recesses of catacombs.” shows that the catacombs were truly a large burial site, not just a storage type of thing, which in turn added to the eerie feeling. Another thing that added to this feeling is when Poe wrote, “Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris.” this quote, while similar to the last, still nonetheless added to an discomforting overall feeling. In the end Fortunado was chained to a wall and hidden away in those