An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Research Paper Example

Ambrose Bierce uses the short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge to depict the degree to which a Southern planter would go in order to preserve a way of life. As the main character, Peyton Farquhar, plunges to his death by hanging, he mentally escapes the moment. He is thinking about what might happen if the rope breaks and he able to go free. The entire story takes place within Farquhar’s mind in the few seconds it takes for him to fall through the trap door on the hanger’s block.  Of all of Bierce’s works, this story has been critically reviewed most by many scholars. The short story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce conveys the life of an Alabama planter during the Civil War. The author does not give many details about the main character, Peyton Farquhar, but there is enough information to understand that he is a man with motives. Farquhar was not eligible to enlist in the Confederate army due to some vague circumstances, leaving him in misery and wanting to contribute to the fight for what he believed in. Farquhar wants to prove his devotion to the army that rejected him, so he lets his imagination get the best of him and he eventually falls right in to the trap of his captors. In this short story, Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce demonstrates how powerful the human mind is when facing a life threatening situations.

The main character, Peyton Farquhar, is probably a rich southern farmer. Being that this story takes place during the Civil War, one can assume that Farquhar has slaves. He comes from an affluent family and therefore is well known. So, he is rich, has a beautiful wife, children, and land. Nonetheless, something is missing from Farquhar’s life. He wants to fight for the Confederate Army, but he is denied admission. Due to his rich upbringings, Farquhar would probably not be suitable to fight such a horrific war. This fact leaves Farquhar feeling that he is less than a man. Freud discusses this issue in his book about dreams. He feels he must do something great to be noticed and help support a cause he firmly believes in. Farquhar believes that destroying the bridge will be a great way to get people to notice and remember him.According to Freud, when a person is awake they are able to suppress certain impulses and desires, but when they sleep the id and superego take over. It is very possible that Farquhar has been dreaming of being a hero and sabotaging the bridge was his opportunity to live out the dream of the man he wanted to be (Freud, 1913). Yet, Ames contends that is possible that Farquhar was actually dreaming during the story as Bierce presented it to the reader. According to him, when Bierce says Farquhar is dead, that is actually when Farquhar wakes up. (Ames, 1987).  If this is the case, Bierce has created a gray line of confusion for all readers.

Most readers do not realize that the entire story is taking place in Farquhar’s mind as he awaits his hanging. Everything that was thoroughly described with so much detail was all running through Farquhar’s head before he was hung to death. For example, “He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his wife and children”, leads one to believe that he never opened his eyes after dreaming of his family. The creation of his fantasy world took place through sheer will to live created by the human mind. According to Freud, human beings naturally desire love, happiness, and freedom. Even when a person is locked away in prison, their mind still unconsciously yearns for freedom even if that person has accepted that prison will be their home for the next twenty years. Many prisoners attribute this mind quality as the main reason why they are able to server time behind bars where they are often isolated for hours or days at a time. The technique that Farquhar is using is no different. He is unable to mentally come to terms with dying, so he uses his mind to escape (Freud, 1913).

There are many themes in this short story. The theme of this story is based solely on how the mind uses the beauty of nature to escape the physical ugliness of the world. When faced with drastic situations, beauty can be seen in things that are not usually viewed as beauty under normal circumstances. For example, one wouldn’t usually enjoy or intentionally muddy themselves, but Farquhar scooped up muds with his hands and threw it all over himself. He even takes time to notice how a fish was swimming through the water and how spiders spun webs from tree to tree. Even though all of these things are an illusion and they were dreamt by the main character, standing on the edge of the bridge looking down gave Farquhar a sense of beauty and respect in things he had not noticed before. He is cherishing what he would be experiencing if he had gotten away and plunged himself off the edge of the bridge. Everything seemed so peaceful once he hit the water and could breathe when the noose fell from his neck, laying himself on the riverbank away from the captors fire was the best feeling in the world. “Themes are most powerful when they somehow draw on common experience and knowledge. This is not to say that only people who have been directly involved in a war can appreciate the theme of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” (Davidson, 1984). That’s not to say that only people who have experienced the horrors of war would understand this short story. The theme of overcoming hardships, oppression, and change is understandable to all readers.

The setting is in Northern Alabama during the time of the civil war. Bierce gives a vivid description of the bridge before the execution of Farquhar. Bierce says,

“Some loose boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest–a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body”. (Bierce)

The description of the death route, such as planks, ropes and beams from the bridge used by the Northern scouts give us a general idea of how people in the war liked to punish their enemies causing as much pain as they possibly could to make them suffer in every way possible. Due to this eminent pain, Farquhar has a very thin line that separates reality from illusion. Frankly, until the end of the story, the reader is not sure of the division between the two. Although the setting is in Alabama, Farquhar has created another setting within his mind. With death only a few minutes away, Farquhar is able to mentally leave his body. During this time he has heightened sensory abilities. If the reader is reading carefully, he/she will be able to discern many instances where acts are just impossible. For example, Farquhar notes that he can hear the pause between firing of the canon and the actual shot (Bierce). He also believes he can see the gray eye of the sharp shooter. Of course, this is impossible, but when the reader is enveloped in the story, he/she is unable to discern these discrepancies.

One major symbol that drove my attention to realize the illusion of Farquhar’s escape verses reality is the driftwood. The driftwood was mentioned quite a few times throughout the story and is used in more context than one. When Farquhar is first looking down from the planks he is standing on with a noose tied around his neck, the driftwood distracts him from what is really happening. He thinks of his wife and children when seeing the driftwood, and later he imagines himself floating in the stream as if he were a piece of driftwood. Farquhar looking down and seeing the water flowing strong and fierce beneath him describes transitioning things from reality to make believe in this story. He then sees the relaxed driftwood and notices how slowly it is moving in the water. Although Farquhar imagines himself as a piece of driftwood, the driftwood is the cause of his capture. A Northern scout was disguised as a Southern scout and advised Farquhar to make a fire of pieces of wood beneath the bridge. Farquhar was then captured, tied up, and his emotions came into play making him fantasize an escape back to his family.

The color gray is used as a form of symbolism throughout the story. The color gray represents uncertainty. The Confederate soldiers wear gray uniforms and they represent something Farquhar is unfamiliar with. In another incidence, the “gray clad” soldier is seen be Farquhar and d his wife, but in actuality the soldier is only pretending to be a Confederate soldier. During the time leading up to the execution, the skies are gray. Here gray represents gloom and sadness (Davidson, 1984). Farquhar imagines that the sharp shooter has gray eyes because he remembers reading somewhere that the best marks’ men have gray eyes.

The bridge itself is one of most ironic symbols in the story. For the bridge itself represents what the Civil War was all about (Davidson, 1984). The bridge represented a connection between the North and South or a transition from one to the other. Regardless to which side, the bridge represented drastic change for both. Farquhar wants to destroy the bridge to keep the enemy from gaining more ground. It is ironic that the bridge is used as the platform to hang Farquhar.

Peyton Farquhar adored his family very much, and without reading much about his family life, one can tell due to his fantasy escape in order to get back to his beautiful wife and beloved children. The thought and admiration Farquhar believed in traveling over night after being brutally abused mentally and physically as he thought he escaped just to return back to his family showed his devotion to them. It was not until the third section of this story that the readers could gain knowledge of an entire fantasy of a man facing death perceived in the presence of his last dreams as a breathing human.  Nonetheless, the story did not end in such a happy manner. A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord” (Bierce). “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)

Ironically, the story begins and ends on the bridge. Bierce’s talented writing style is able to enthrall the reader in such a way that he/she is unable to identify clues early on that depicted the impossible. Most readers are unaware that Farquhar is dead until Bierce actually tells them. Farquhar is a typical character of the pre-Civil War South willing to sacrifice his life in order to protect a way of life that was of benefit to him. Yet, Bierce delves into the human psyche in such a way that other writers of the time had not. Death was an almost common occurrence during this time. People died all the time from common illnesses like pneumonia or giving birth to a child. However, no matter how common it was, people just didn’t understand it and feared it as many people do today. Using this story, Bierce gave the reader of the day a little insight into what he believed happened to a person when they were facing eminent death. One can gather that Bierce believed that is was not as horrendous as people believed. Based upon what he wrote in this story, one is led to believe that the mint takes over and the person is transformed back in time to a happier place and feels no pain. Although the actual hanging death only took a few minutes, Farquhar is experiencing a happiness that took much longer. So, he is able to escape the mental pain and anguish of the actual breaking of his neck. When the ordeal is over, then he comes back to his body and is consumed by death. It is safe to say that any person would hope that this is how death occurs, rather than moaning and groaning in pain and horror.

Works Cited

Ames, Clifford R. “Do I Wake or sleep? Technique as Content in Ambrose Bierce’s Short Story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.'” American Literary Realism 19.3 (1987): 52-66

Bierce, Ambrose. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. Shorter 11^th ed. New York: Norton, 2013. 551-57. Print

Davidson, Cathy N. The Experimental Fictions of Ambrose Bierce: Structuring the Ineffable. London: U of Nebraska P, 1984

Freud, Sigmund. The Interpretation of Dreams. 3rd ed. London: Macmillan. 1913.