Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge
Madison Troyer
Quinn Ludwicki
Joey Kung
Silas Wheedleton
AC Project Essay
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Ambrose Bierce wrote “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to illustrate the fragile line that divides life and death. During the Civil War, Bierce was a topographical soldier who received a head injury that took him out of his duty. When he received this traumatic wound, it opened his eyes to realize how quickly death can sneak up on a human being. After this observation Bierce wrote a short story about a fictional character named Peyton Farquhar, who also experienced the feeling of death closely at hand. Ambrose Bierce wrote this short story with four different elements that helped the story piece together into a great …show more content…
This quality is the story’s expeditious paced plot (Samide 3). By having a fast moving plot, the reader doesn’t have adequate time to think about the unlikelihood of the events in the plot. An example of this rapid plot is when Farquhar falls to the end of the noose and it snaps. While this is possible, he would be dead regardless because the noose would simply break his neck. In the story it said: “The slack (meaning the slack of the rope) fell to the level of his knees”. If a man were to fall with that much slack in the rope, he would be going so fast that when the rope became taut his neck would snap, regardless if the rope broke after it became taut. Before the reader has time to process the unlikelihood of the noose not breaking his neck, Farquhar hits the water below nearly about to drown as a result of his tied up hands. After he unties his hands under the water, disregarding the fact that the fall would have surely taken his breath away, the soldiers on the bridge start to shoot at him. By putting exiting events so close to each other, the reader does not have time to think of the reasons that the previous event could not possibly have happened without resulting in Farquhar’s death. Having a rapid paced plot is what enables the other qualities to fall in
Quinn Ludwicki
Joey Kung
Silas Wheedleton
AC Project Essay
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”
Ambrose Bierce wrote “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” to illustrate the fragile line that divides life and death. During the Civil War, Bierce was a topographical soldier who received a head injury that took him out of his duty. When he received this traumatic wound, it opened his eyes to realize how quickly death can sneak up on a human being. After this observation Bierce wrote a short story about a fictional character named Peyton Farquhar, who also experienced the feeling of death closely at hand. Ambrose Bierce wrote this short story with four different elements that helped the story piece together into a great …show more content…
This quality is the story’s expeditious paced plot (Samide 3). By having a fast moving plot, the reader doesn’t have adequate time to think about the unlikelihood of the events in the plot. An example of this rapid plot is when Farquhar falls to the end of the noose and it snaps. While this is possible, he would be dead regardless because the noose would simply break his neck. In the story it said: “The slack (meaning the slack of the rope) fell to the level of his knees”. If a man were to fall with that much slack in the rope, he would be going so fast that when the rope became taut his neck would snap, regardless if the rope broke after it became taut. Before the reader has time to process the unlikelihood of the noose not breaking his neck, Farquhar hits the water below nearly about to drown as a result of his tied up hands. After he unties his hands under the water, disregarding the fact that the fall would have surely taken his breath away, the soldiers on the bridge start to shoot at him. By putting exiting events so close to each other, the reader does not have time to think of the reasons that the previous event could not possibly have happened without resulting in Farquhar’s death. Having a rapid paced plot is what enables the other qualities to fall in