An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

An occurrence at owl creek bridge focuses on the story of a civilian plantation owner. The setting of the story is at the height of the civil war. Throughout the narrative, Bierce, who is the author, tries to reflect on the initial stages of death. It highlights the desires, fears, strengths, and even the doubts at the time of dismay. The objective of this essay will be to answer the questions below in detail:

What does the story reveal about the human experience (how fears motivate people, how people respond to progress or resist change, how developments in technology impact traditions, etc.)?

Bierce’s story bears different experiences that denote the real-life situations of people. For every stage of our lives, we have to pass through tests that reveal how strong or weak a human mind can be. We focus on Peyton Fahrquhar, who is at the edge of execution. The real-life experiences are well painted on his mind. Human beings are fragile yet strong creatures. They can be quickly taken down by the power of their mind. It is the counter force that reverses their weaknesses to something more substantial. Thus, the results of heroism are in inform of courage and endurance. As the story starts to build, so do we see the other side of life. We tend to dwell in that place where we find solace. We focus on the things that we can do, and the ones we could have done if given time. All this happens when we are on the verge of breaking down.   

Peyton Farquhar thinks of his wife and children and is then distracted by a noise that, to him, sounds like an unbearably loud clanging; it is the ticking of his watch.    He considers the possibility of jumping off the bridge and swimming to safety if he can free his tied hands, but the soldiers drop him from the deck before he can act on the idea. The idea of preparing before disaster strikes keep us safe as humans. The little longer we wait for something to happen can either be positive or vice versa, depending on the situation. We, humans, wish for the opposite scenario when faced with challenges. We tend to focus on the lighter side to soothe our hearts and take the pain away. Peyton turns his focus on the way to escape. He gets engraved into his thoughts of freedom. He wishes he could have the superhero powers to cut himself loose and make his way to the waters below. Little did he know that he was late for that. He had to face the cruel judgment of civil war. It signifies the laxity nature of accomplishing out tasks, which later comes back to haunt on us.

Peyton tastes freedom for once. He sees his wife at a glance and her incredible beauty. He appreciates every bit of it. Sometimes the human mind fails to understand the real value of what we possess. Instead, people take everything for granted. It only comes to be seen as valuable it is about to slip away.

There is an element of betrayal from the story. It reflects in real-life situations where those people who get help from others tend to betray their helpers. It is instead a sickening nature of human beings to do that. People will be used to lure others into traps, and eventually, their victims succumb to that trick. Peyton Farquhar helps a soldier in dire need to quench his thirst. Farquhar wants to burn the bridge which has been seized and repaired by the Union troops. Unbeknownst to Farquhar, the soldier is one of the Union troops. He intentionally suggests to Farquhar that he can execute his plans if he gets past the guards operating the bridge. Farquhar is lured to his death. The soldier portrayed himself as a backstabber.

What role does fantasy play in the way humans deal with reality?

Ambrose Bierce, the author of the short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, joins both the dream and fantasy of death into the hanging of a southern estate proprietor named Peyton Farquhar.

Bierce passes on the significance of time and the hugeness it has on the individuals who are anticipating their demise. In this instance, Farquhar fantasizes about getting away from his death by liberating himself of his subjugations and swimming down the stream while evading projectiles being taken shots at him. This dream uncovers the creative nature a mind of a human being can have when confronted with death. The point by point portrayal of his departure, come back to land, and excursion again to his ranch where he meets his better half all happen surprisingly fast. This snappy dream is drawn out in a more extended time frame by Bierce through detailed depiction.

What social issues are raised by a character’s actions?

From numerous points of view, the story is about understanding. The character’s impression of general surroundings and the reader’s judgment of what befalls him are firmly identifiable with one another. Farquhar’s world turns out to be progressively hazardous as the story advances, as what occurs to him turns out to be less trustworthy. By concentrating on the character’s rendition of reality, the creator motivates us to interrogate what regarding our lives is and isn’t genuine. On the off chance that a man is about to be hanged can envision a convenient getaway, at that point, what can’t a human intellectual capacity concoct?

The issues of justice are precedent. A civilian plantation owner is sentenced to death without trial. That is an inhumane way of settling a case. Justice was like a dream, chased but never found. The ruthless execution of a civilian denotes the ruthlessness amongst the union troops, who were then guarding the creek bridge. There is an aspect of betrayal. Farquhar betrayal by the union troop is seen as a problem as no one can volunteer to give information about anything, for fear of execution. We are, however, not told why Farquhar wanted so badly to burn the bridge. Was it to protect his family? Or for his selfish interest?

All in all, burning down the bridge would lead to economic problems amongst the locals. It is due to the railway that the economy thrived. The sufficient flow of trade commodities facilitated it since the railway was one of the primary modes of transport during the civil war.

How does the narrative structure manipulate reality in the story?

Initially, the short story appears to take the reader through regular narrative devices of anticipation, rush, and dramatization, prompting a sudden curve finishing. Be that as it may, the significance of the story goes a long way past these impacts. As it were, another artistic component of the story is its particular pedantic inclination, which is additionally the most noticeable topic in the story. Bierce is recommending two crucial things about existence. To begin with, we, for the most part, underestimate much little stuff like the excellence of nature and the tangible delight it can give. Second, the author is implying that the best possible parameter for estimating life ought to be quality and force of its utilization as opposed to a simple amount. What Bierce is likewise driving home is the family member and adaptable nature of time with regards to human tangible and psychological experience. As opposed to estimating time in outright terms, the experience of living, and all the more especially the power and speed with which situations develop, can extend the time to incredible lengths. (Stoicheff, 1993, p.351)

How are symbols used within the story, and what do they represent; how are they significant to the literary work? How do these symbols develop themes within the literary work?

Driftwood, as it advances downriver, speaks to both Farquhar’s unattainable freedom and Farquhar himself as he starts envisioning his departure in the water. From the start, the driftwood diverts Farquhar from contemplations of his better half and kids. Afterward, it turns into an augmentation of Farquhar himself, as Farquhar envisions gliding in the water just as he is driftwood. The driftwood likewise demonstrates Farquhar’s contorted feeling of time. As he looks down, he sees the water “dashing frantically” underneath him; at that point considers the “moving” driftwood. He is struck by how gradually it is by all accounts moving in the out of nowhere “lazy” stream. This unexpected change in his recognition denotes Farquhar’s progress from reality to dream. From that point on, he mistreats the subtleties of his own story and supplies the completion he wants: a courageous getaway instead of an execution for being a war criminal. Amusingly, even though he imagines himself as driftwood of sorts, it is driftwood that prompted his catch in any case. When Farquhar at first experiences the covert Northern scout, the scout encourages Farquhar to burn down the bits of wood that the winter flood cleared to the base of the extension. The driftwood accordingly fills in as his methods for fixing similarly as it at last speaks to an unattainable opportunity. The Owl Creek Bridge, the Owl Creek connect proposes association and progress. Confederate powers or sympathizers had probably devastated the extension trying to keep the North from progressing further into a hostile area. With the significant supply route reestablished by Union powers, the North’s war exertion indeed picked up energy in northern Alabama, introducing definitive destruction of the Confederacy and stopping the Civil War. Amusingly, the objective of Farquhar’s damage endeavour turns into the stage on which his execution is organized. By undermining the extension, Farquhar was endeavouring to dissolve request and association, similarly as he disintegrates request by fantasizing, in the last snapshots of his life, about disengaging himself from his physical body. The scaffold fills in as a delegate space, joining the river’s contrary banks—it is neither one side nor the other, however an association between them. Mainly, the scaffold enters life and passing for Farquhar. As Farquhar “gets away” into the water, the framework proposes a transitional mental space between dream and reality.

What does this work reveal about issues like reality, imagination, truth, morals, values, relationships, gender roles, power structures, etc.?

The narrator of Section II appears to share a portion of the man-centric estimations of Farquhar’s way of life. (Berkove 2002): The expressing of the sentence about Mrs. Farquhar’s hands is lavishly twofold edged and indeed denounces the estimations of Mrs. Farquhar and her significant other. Penalties, for example, this one verifiably assault slave-proprietors in the most grounded potential terms. In the interim, the opening sentence of this passage certainly censures Farquhar for his latency. (Berkove 2002): Ironically, a hidden man will misdirect Farquhar into himself receiving a misleading mask.

The encompassing scene turns out to be less and less like reality the further he goes, to where the trees “shaped a straight divider on the two sides, ending not too far off in a point, similar to a chart in an exercise in context,” and the stars show up “in bizarre heavenly bodies.” At this point, it’s indistinct whether Farquhar is still right now a reality, or if he has voyage elsewhere: someplace that lone the verge of death can uncover.

Bierce expresses, “He took a gander at the timberland on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—he saw the very creepy crawlies upon them.” The previous occurrence of Farquhar’s watch blasting uproarious foretells a comparable encounter now, during his envisioned break, as typical sounds and sensations take on a mysterious force.

Any place it will be, it feels premonition and terrible, with “solitary commotions, among which—once, twice, and once more—he particularly heard murmurs in an obscure tongue.” The entry more intently looks like awfulness than a war story, further solidifying the hero’s twisted discernments and their capacity to shape his experience. While, uplifted observation results from a reasonable procedure of enlivening—beginning when “he lost cognizance and was as one effectively dead” and gradually growing from that zero points until the entire world is bursting at the seams with new subtleties and sensations. There was something uncanny in the disclosure.” This wanders structure the commonplace scene he thought he knew, and the utilization of “disclosure” recommends an automatic acknowledgment that he’s never again encountering this present reality. He escapes the fighters into the woodland, just to be shocked by its thickness and absence of residence: “He had not realized that he lived in so wild a district. “However, he heard the dull roar of the volley” of the Union fighters taking shots at him.

Works Cited