Peyton Farquhar is the main character in Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek, a narrative about Farquhar’s eventual hanging for his support of the confederate army during the civil war. The fractured nature of the narrative allows the plot to culminate at a one point where the final connection is made. Peyton Farquhar’s eventual death allows for a window into his final moments on earth as a living being. Moving through his mind alongside him as he escapes death and makes his way through the woods to his wife and children illustrates Farquhar’s unwavering faithfulness to his family, even when facing death. His duty to support his family is both consciously and unconsciously his first priority. His escape was not just an attempt at survival driven by human instinct, but rather a commitment to return to his beloved family, the first priority of Farquhar’s life. A commitment so strong that his will to return to his family surpasses all logic and basic instinct even when it is solely a construct of the mind. One of Farquhar’s strongest feelings, his abhorrence for the Union army, does not enter his mind during his escape. This is especially remarkable since this group is responsible for permanently removing Farquhar from his family’s life. This is evident in Farquhar’s final thoughts before being hanged, his only apparent reason for escape, returning home to his family, and the journey he perseveres through to return home before his true fate is revealed.
The conventional belief is that anyone facing imminent death uses his or her final moment to think about those who mean the most in his or her life. While this is nearly impossible confirm, it seems that the overwhelming finality of death would render any subsequent...
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... from his family, is not present in his construction. The plot of the narrative is not in chronological order. Therefore, the fate of the person is evident before his true character is revealed. The evidence for this claim is apparent in Farquhar’s last thoughts before being hanged by the Union army. Also, his motivation, to return to his wife and children, further makes this argument clear. Lastly, the thirty miles Farquhar travels after being so close to death proves further that his dedication to family surpasses his instinct. The realistic construct of a reality in which Farquhar escapes and is reunited with his family illustrates abiding desire for the most meaningful part of his life, his family.
Works Cited
Bierce, Ambrose. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton, 2008. 300-306.
As Peyton Farquhar marches in the center of the line of federate executioners, subsequently, he stands on a plank with a noose around his neck, while the sun shone, the owls screech above, and single piece of driftwood floats by below. Peyton, in hindsight he had no compunction in a conversation with a grey-clad soldier who and asks “the lady” (553) for a drink of water at the gate, and nonetheless condemns Farquhar for interference of an order (553). The ticking of his pocket watch causes fear in his mind, which he is subsequently trying to escape. As his heartbeats in time with his watch, and in that second, he is descending into his own-minds keen senses downward into Owl Creek, wi...
"Short Stories :An occurence at owl creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce." 2009. Web. 2 Dec 2009. .
In writing this story, Bierce is commenting on war itself and the contrast between this romanticized tale of heroism and the gruesome reality the hundreds of thousands of men had to face, and still have to face to this very day. The true horrors of war are never normally publicized, and this is why the populace is willing to go and fight. In the case of Peyton Farquhar, this ignorance lead to his blind patriotism, which in turn lead to his death. As the narrator relates to the reader: “Circumstances of an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had prevented him from taking service with the gallant army [...] and he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction.” (Bierce 2). The aforementioned quote is most definitely an affirmation of the grandeur of the military, and this is the perspective that Peyton Farquhar and many men shared. It is this illusion of grandeur that corrupts many men (and women) to head out and die in horrible
Death is sometimes considered unthinkable. People do not wish to think of loved ones dying. When someone close to us dies we are over come with sadness. We wish we had more time with them. Their death shows us the importance of that person’s role in our lives. We begin to think of how we will live our lives without them. We think of all the moments we shared with them, they live again in our memories. Perhaps death is considered unthinkable because we fe...
After his capture Farquhar is sentenced to death by hanging, when the noose slipped around his neck the only thoughts going through his head were those of escape, how he would do it and what he would do if he did. Before he knew it the sergeant stepped aside and Farquhar fell though the bridge to his death, but this is not the e...
In the last three paragraphs of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge told by a third person point of view, Farquhar is being hanged by the rope, and when the rope is undone, Farquhar escapes and sees the light of the river. The light in this particular story represents a warm bright light from heaven. On other hand on the complete opposite side, in The Tell Tale Heart the light (lantern) signifies fear of the eye. However the narrator reveals that Farquhar?s escape is a hallucination that lasts only from moment the rope breaks his neck at the end of the fall.
In "Owl Creek Bridge," the protagonist's narrative is realistic and reasonable and with the author’s creative imagination, the narration shifted to enable the readers to see inside Farquhar's mind. The way the mind perceived how an emotional conflict changes the way t...
However, in order for a difficult circumstance to be dealt with, a combination of the two are required. Realists who can dream and dreamers who can be real are ideal in order to overcome terrible obstacles even if those obstacles result in your death. An occurrence at Owl Creek told in an objective third person narration. This story was also told in a nonlinear narrative, thus showing in literary form how an imagination works by jumping around from place to place and time to time. Throughout the story, Ambrose Bierce calls attention to a Farquhar's heightened senses and abilities. This was his way of spoiling the outcome of the story by hinting to the fact that Farquhar's escape was in fact an illusion . Irony is running rampant within this extraordinary work of literary art. A Dramatic example of irony is the fact that Farquhar says that he is a student of hanging and yet he's the one being hanged, "suppose a man -- a civilian and student of hanging -- should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the
Readers are confounded as the conflict actualizes with Peyton Farquhar finding himself on a bridge awaiting his execution. Although Farquhar is to be hung, he still manages to keep calm and focused on what is important, his family. However this is where the story makes its first turn as Farquhar’s thoughts are interrupted by the sound of his own watch. The description of the piercing sound is but a small glimpse of the “dream” that is to come. This is where time and perspective tend to get confused. Prevalently this idea is due to the temporary solution that comes as Peyton Farquhar “dreams” himself escaping such perilous doom and reaching his wife.
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” intertwines reality and illusion until the end, when Farquhar is hanged. Reality is what actually exists and illusion is what we pursue. Everyone has a distorted sense of reality and illusion because people’s ideal image of reality is that we can create and control everything. Similar to people, Farquhar is tremendously desperate to separate himself from reality. So, Farquhar imagines his escape hoping that he can gain control of his situation. Farquhar or people want their fantasies to be genuine in order to cope with reality making it extremely difficult to separate them later on. When Farquhar or people do learn the difference reality is now more difficult to accept. So, as Farquhar comes back to reality he learns that even with his imaginative escape there can only be one ending. He will die.
Ambrose Bierce composed the story with great technique. He first arose reader's sympathy for Peyton Farquhar, which caused them to accept the idea of an escape. Then, he hid those evidences between the lines and created a tense atmosphere to make readers pay less attention to those abnormal narratives. It was not until the end that he brought out the truth explicitly. So to conclude, the reader's sympathy for Peyton Farquhar, and the way Ambrose Bierce composed his story, contribute a lot to their feeling of being deceived.
Confrontation of death and the anxiety created by its inevitability can be considered as notable dilemma for humans (Letho, 200...
Ambrose Bierce wrote "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" during the turn of the nineteenth to twentieth century. During this time period the two writing styles of romanticism, and realism were coming together. This melding of styles was a result of the romantic period of writing and art coming to an end, just at realism was beginning to gain popularity. "The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a perfect example of this transition of styles as it combines elements of both romanticism and realism to create a story that can be far-fetched while still believable at times.
The theme in “An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge” is brought together by three necessary literary elements. The author incorporates symbolism into the story to help support the theme that nobody can escapes death and how thoughts in the mind are so substantial in the consciousness that it can take over the reality. The author uses symbolism to support the theme that nobody can escape death Bierce showed the piece of driftwood slowly being carried away. That piece of driftwood brought hope to Peyton Farquhar, because of this his mind started to wonder out of reality. He started to go into a fantasy world where he could escape and become that driftwood in the currents of the rivers. By giving Fargher this hope the author was able to allow him to escape in only his mind. Showing that there was no reality for the execution to go undone. The author lead us into such a unbelievable r...
A large portion of the text in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is just Peyton’s imagination, and the details are quite vivid. Obviously, the boy in “Chickamauga” uses his imagination freely, from his pretend sword to riding the wounded soldiers like horses. It seems that this is part of Bierce’s denouncement of romanticism. Peyton’s escape, daring and unbelievable, is only his imagination. It is as if Bierce is communicating that these types of things only happen in the imagination; in reality the man uneventfully hangs and dies. The point Bierce makes is that Romanticism is just an imaginative view of the world. He attempts to make it quite clear that the world is unfair, tragic, and cruel, something Bierce had experienced firsthand. The wording used in both stories paints very realistic and grotesque images, like when the jawless soldier is described; “from the upper teeth to the throat was a great red gap fringed with hanging shreds of flesh and splinters of bone.”(Bierce) This type of description goes along with Bierce’s attempt to show true, gruesome reality, and we see it again when the boy’s mother is seen with her skull agape. Bierce also describes more beautiful scenes in a similar manner, allowing the reader to imagine vivid and detailed images. Perhaps the most prominent example of his vivid description is when Peyton emerges from the water; “He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the