Exploring An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

Exploring An position At Owl creek bridge deckThe short story An Occurrence at Owl creek Bridge has received more minute attention than any new(prenominal) single work written by Ambrose Bierce. This is most likely because of the r placee the story combines into one text the best components distri neverthelessed among much of Bierces fiction such as yarn, plot, imagery, the exposure of human-deception, and a surprise ending (Stoicheff 1). In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Bierce differentiates between internal and out-of-door orbits and illustrates that the mind jakes manufacture its admit realities and get bys. He does not tell the reader that Farquhar is hallucinating, but kind of expects the reader to evaluate the story and realize the impossibility of events described in the final events of the story. With such literary techniques, Bierce opposed many of the literary trends of his day in both his journalism and his fiction. He believed any moot of life which ignored the unconscious processes of mind could not call itself practical (Davidson 2). Bierces works reflect his fixing with ironic, unnecessary, and strange last, as well as his cynical, disillusioned attitude on the meaninglessness of life (Habibi 2). He detested war and saw firsthand the absurdity and insanity of it. This emerges as a connecting theme in several of his writings. His protagonists atomic number 18 usually antiheroes and they baffle conscious decisions based on flawed thinking, which ultimately air current to tragic predicaments (Habibi 2-3). Bierce is known for his use of literary elements and skillfully uses third person narrative, a quickly paced plot, realistic detail, and blends vision and reality to lead the reader into believing in Farquhars escape. Therefore, the reader is unable to interpret Farquhars legitimate fate until the very end of the story.Bierce cleverly chooses to write this story in third person narrative. By using third person narrativ e, the author is able to do a variety of different things to juggle the readers attention and keep them guessing. He most likely chooses this course of action to convey to the reader the main(prenominal) characters steps and emotions and to conceal his death. This perspective, often called limited omniscience, tells the story from an observers standpoint (Samide 1). By definition, this narrator knows all things important in the story, even a characters own thoughts. Therefore, the reader is able to get a more in prescience look into how the main character is feeling, as well as tell the reader the outward world of the story (Samide 1). In this story, the author chooses to focus on the mind of only one main character, Farquhar, and enters it extensively throughout the course of the story. At any given time, the narrator may also move in and out of the chosen characters mind and thoughts, or inform the reader or so what is happening in the outermost world of the story. Because t he author chooses this point of view, it is difficult for the reader to know Farquhars escape is unreal until the last business of the story, when the narrator emerges from his mind to tell the reader Farquhar is brain dead (Samide 1). Bierce skillfully forces the reader to believe in Farquhars hallucinated escape and therefore, is able to surprise the reader with Farquhars death. It enables Bierce to take the reader inside Farquhars mind to demonstrate how emotional peeinginess alters not only the way the mind interprets the reality of a situation, but also the way it perceives the career of time.Bierce also uses a rapidly paced plot to keep the reader from figuring out the surprise ending. He quickly paces the plot in order to distract the reader from closely examining Farquhars unlikely escapes from death. Before the reader has time to pick up the likelihood of a broken neck from the rope or some another(prenominal) injury, Bierce has Farquhar struggling not to drown. He s inks deep into the wet, his hands motionlessness tied together and the noose still wrapped around his neck. So instead of thinking about his broken neck or poor from another injury, the reader focuses on his new problem of drowning. Then, somehow, Farquhar is able to free his hands from the rope and slips dour the noose. But again, the reader is relieved that Farquhar escapes drowning that he does not fully examine the likeliness of this escape. Then, Farquhar bursts to the surface of the water for air and must start dodging bullets, diverting the readers attention once more from the previous escapes from the ropes and drowning (Samide 3). Therefore, by using a rapid paced plot, Bierce is able to distract the reader from examining the likeliness of the escapes by creating new diversions, reservation it more presumptive for the reader.Another literary device Bierce uses in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is the element of imagery. Bierce relies heavily upon imagery throughout the story, centering on sight and sounds to make his twaddle more convincing. Bierce goes to great lengths to describe the opening sequence in terms of its military arrangement. He provides graphic images of group formations and soldier stances such as a single company of infantry in line, the position inclining backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock, at parade rest the butts of the rifles on the demesne (Bierce 72). These descriptions show Bierces past military experience in various wars and battles, giving the story a champion of realism. Also by using such realistic details, Bierce is able to make Farquhars escape more believable to the reader. After the first round of shots from the soldiers, when he hears the captain give orders to fire, Farquhar dives deep into the water. Some of the bullets, still strong from the guns, spiral down into the water beside him (Samide 3). One lodged between his collar and neck it was uncomfortably stiff and he snatched it out. (Bierce 75) These few examples of realism lead the reader to believe that Farquhar is really escaping. When he comes to the surface again, the current has interpreted Farquhar out of shooting range of personal weapons, but he must now worry about the cannon being used. The first shot misses, but sprays him with water. The second shot is a much mend shot that will surely hit him, but suddenly, the current whirls him around a bend in the river and throws him up on the bank, out of aim of the cannon (Samide 3). While the rapid series of insecuritys has caused the reader to consider the probability of each escape, the authors use of imagery and realistic detail convinces the reader that he is out of danger and is now on his way to finishing his escape by losing himself in the dense forest and acquire back home to his wife and family (Samide 3). The rest of the story goes on to describe Farquhars long trip home. He continues on his journey through the forest and fi nally arrives to the gate of his own home. He sees his wife and she holds out her hands in joyous welcome. As Farquhar reaches out to embrace her, he feels a stunning ruffle to his neck, sees a blinding white light, hears a sounds like the shock of a cannon-then all is darkness and gloss over (Bierce76). At this point in the story, the limited narrator moves out of Farquhars mind and returns to the objective world on the bridge, revealing to the reader the shocking last line and revelation that, all along, the escape was Farquhars hallucination (Samide 3-4). Peyton Farquhar was dead his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge. (Bierce 76)One of the literary elements Bierce uses that he is most known for is his blending of envisage and reality. Bierce mixes the external world of death with Farquhars internal world, resulting in the success of his hallucination. Farquhar, in his mind, is imagining his incredible escape wh en he is actually dying. Bierce skillfully uses metaphors and similes in order to secretly describe the true fate of Farquhar. For example, Bierce uses the pendulum not only as a significant metaphor for time, but also as a simile for Farquhars body, which swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek Bridge (Bierce 76). Farquhar is conscious of motion of a vast pendulum because his body literally traces, and therefore senses it. Similar intrusions of other objective stimuli into Farquhars experience occur throughout the rest of the story. The sharp report of the firing gun, its slightly after dulled thunder, and the alleged explosion of the cannon that was cracking and smashing the branches in the forest beyond are all Farquhars hallucinated revision of the sound of his own neck falling out. Bierce successfully emphasizes the association, describing the literal event of Farquhars neck breaking as occurring with sound like the shock of a cannon. Farquhars sens ation of rising rising toward the surface of the water is the dreamers understanding of the slight bounce the body experiences after reaching the extremity of its flexible rope the feeling of almost drowning in the creek modifies the fact of strangulation itself the horribly aching neck and the uncomfortably warm bullet impossibly lodged between his collar and his neck under the water reinterpret the pain of dangling the counter-swirl that spins him around in the current refers to the twisting at the end of the rope the projecting point which conceal him from his enemies transforms the bridge now above him the sensation of his own tongue thrusting forward from between his dentition into the cold air registers its grotesque protrusion during strangulation the inability to feel the roadway beneath his feet is a similarly accurate feeling, dutifully revised into an understandable fatigue, thirst and numbness near the end of his narrative of escape (Stoicheff 3). Thus, a key element i n the story is the distention of time and the blending of fantasy and reality. The reader is left with a range of reactions the element of surprise, the promise and loss of hope, the tragedy of death, the ultimate cohesiveness of objective reality, and acknowledgment of Bierces carefully constructed deception (Habibi 1).Bierce skillfully blends the third person point of view that conceals Farquhars death until the very end, a rapidly paced plot of narrow escapes from death that distract the reader, concrete details that make the final escape seem real, and the technique of blending fantasy and reality (Samide 4). Bierces usage of narrative, plot, imagery, and blending of fantasy and reality make it hard for the reader to detect Farquhars true fate until the final line of the story. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Bierce distinguishes between the internal and external worlds of Farquhar and shows the reader that the mind can create its own realities and its own escapes. He exp ects the reader to evaluate the story and realize on his own the impossibility of events described in the final events of the story (Davidson 2). Bierce purposely uses these elements of fiction in order to create a suspenseful ending that connects with the central theme of the human need to escape death.Work CitedWelty Bierce, Ambrose. An Occurrence at Owl Creek. Literature An Introduction to Reading and Writing. 9th ed. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts. New York Pearson Longman, 2009, 71-76.Samide, Daniel E. Anatomy of a Classic Ambrose Bierce sprucely Used Some Key Literary Tools in Crafting His Civil War Tale An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. The Writer May 200542. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 5 Apr. 2010.Habibi, Don Asher. The experience of a biography philosophical reflections on a narrative device of Ambrose Bierce. Studies in the Humanities 29.2 (2002) 83+. Academic OneFile. Web. 11 Apr. 2010.Davidson, Cathy N. Ambrose (Gwinett) Bierce. American Short-Story Writers Before 1880 . Ed. Bobby Ellen Kimbel and William E. Grant. Detroit Gale Research, 1988. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 74. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Apr. 2010.Stoicheff, Peter. Something Uncanny The Dream social structure in Ambrose Bierces An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Studies in Short Fiction 30.3 (Summer 1993) 349-357. Joseph Palmisano. Vol. 72. Detroit Gale, 2004. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 10 Apr. 2010.