Everything About An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

Summary

In the first section, we get thrown right into the story and find a man that is about to be hung in Northern Alabama, on a bridge. He is surrounded by officials of the federal army (north) and a sentinel keeping watch. We find out that the man is an ordinary man with no bad history. While standing there, he tried to think of his children and wife but was constantly distracted by small insignificant things. While the man thought about what he would do if he got his hands free, his executor stepped aside and let the plank that was holding him fall.

In the second part, we read about his life before his hanging. We get to know Peyton Farquhar a little more; he was a planter, slave owner, and Confederate politician. He also wanted to be a part of the military because he was a soldier at heart, but for some reason (not specified) he wasn’t allowed to join.

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He meets a soldier in gray (south, but he may be a spy) that says that the union soldiers are reconstructing the railroads and are at the Owl Creek bridge. The soldier says if a civilian is caught sneaking around they might be hanged. Peyton is eager to try and help, so the gray-clad soldier hints at how dry the bridge is and would easily burn. At night he went to the bridge.

In the last section, we’re back to where we left off in section one.

Peyton Farquhar is hanging on the bridge slowly dying, frantic to find a way out, and losing consciousness. As an attempt to escape Farquhar swings his body back and forth, this somehow works, and he is in the water. The rope is still suffocating him, and his hand is tied, so he freed his hands and opened the noose. While he was trying to free himself of the restraints, his executioners were shooting at him but always missed. He swam away from the bridge and got out of the water, he ran through the forest determined to get to his family. When he opened the gate to his home, his wife was waiting for him. Just as he was about to hug her he gets a sharp pain in the back of his neck; white light blinds him, and he hears a powerful loud sound. We find out that he was dead all along and never got out of the Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.

Main plot

The red thread in this work is his hanging. It’s divided into three parts wherein one of them we get a back story. The development in this story is his hanging and his trying to get out pushes the story forward. His getting free and escaping successfully is the climax. The solution is that he was dead all along. All he wants to go through this whole story is to get back to his wife.

Character analysis

When we first meet him, Peyton Farquhar is called the hanged man. We don’t know much about him in the first part except that he has done something wrong therefore he is about to be hung. It’s in the second part we find out that he is a confederate and a slave owner. He really wants to make an impact on the war but for some unknown reason isn’t allowed. We meet his wife who is quiet and does what she’s told. I think that she is his commonsense, his anchor, and when he’s trying to think clearly about his wife he got interrupted like he wasn’t listening to her. He’s when he got “free” his mission was to go back to his wife. She is his happiness that he ignores because he wanted to heroic and wanted more than a stable life.

When the Union Scout posing as Confederate showed up at his door he was eager to know how he could sabotage the North's campaign. The Union Scout took this opportunity to introduce the idea of sabotaging the bridge to Farquhar, the scout was the reason a large as to why Peyton Farquhar got hung.

Theme

One of the big themes of the text is time, or more specifically distortion of time. Peyton slows downtime when he’s about to be hung, he slows downtime when he got free. His reality is altered, time slows down at certain moments and speeds up in others. The author messes with time and in the story, time isn't always fluid. It jumps from the present to the past and back and it's the reader's job to decipher the order of events.

The author plays with what’s reality and fantasy. When he got hung he made up a fantasy world for himself. Even though some parts of the fantasy world were unrealistic, like how easily he got out without being shot, we don’t know that he is fantasizing about it until the end. We are so engrossed by his fantasy world that we don’t realize the exaggerations or faults just like Farquhar has, Peyton himself is even amazed at the things he did. He doesn’t want to face the reality of his death.

I think that the author wanted to show that there isn’t much glory to was, he was a vet who did not like the effects of war. That death and war aren’t honorable, like the Union Scout he had to trick Peyton Farquhar to his death.

Time

The pendulum represents the passing of time. The pendulum gets louder as a way of telling him that he doesn’t have control over how much time he has left of his life. The pendulum gets quieter before his death and after his hanging, he doesn’t hear the pendulum anymore because he has lost the perception of time.

My reaction

While reading the story, you’re looking for things that might hint at what bad thing he did to be hung, that’s what I think is fun about this story. You don’t get things handed to you on a silver platter you have to figure out the major questions by yourself. He leaves those answers in the text, but it’s subtle. There are a lot of questions left for me even after answering the big ones. I could mull over every end of the questions but that’s also what’s so great about this story, people who read this can have so many different opinions and theories about the smallest thing. Although there are many long descriptions and it could be a little tiresome to read it helped me understand how he sees life when he almost died, how he appreciates everything more. I liked the plot twist ending, I didn’t expect him to be dead and it really surprised me. Although I should have when I think back at it because he got out easily and the trained shooters always missed him. I think it was a very good story.

Quotes

The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and the feeling was torment.

After falling he loses control over his body and everything shuts down. He can only feel it, and he thinks that it is tormenting because he probably regrets everything and wants to get back to his wife.

Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for now, he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine.

Farquhar becomes more confused and he even says that he might have delirium, so he’s foreshadowing that this might not be real.

As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon - then all is darkness and silence.

Just as he is about to get his fantasy life and get back the feeling of being with his wife and children the canon (reality) interrupts him.

Bierce’s writing style

Bierce takes his time describing nature after Farquhar escapes even though there is a looming danger. “…saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—he saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig.” This is probably a way to convey that Peyton is happy that he got a second chance in life and appreciates everything more. Bierce plays with time both in how Farquhar perceives it and in the order of the story. It gives the illusion that time doesn’t matter and can be interpointed however you want.

Why did Farquhar reject what his wife represented?

Farquhar wanted to be a part of the war so badly that he rejected his wife. She was the domestic part of his life, but he wanted more, and when he later realized that on the bridge it was too late.

Symbolic meaning

I think that the bridge represents now, and reality and the water represent his longing for escaping and coming back to his wife, and when he gets to the water that is when the imaginary part of the story starts. Even though the stream moves rapidly the driftwood is moving slowly like it not affected by the stream