refrerence_material_1.docxRecord: 1
Title:
Anatomy of a Classic: Ambrose Bierce cleverly used some key literary tools in crafting his Civl War tale 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.'
Authors:
Samide, Daniel E.
Source:
Writer (Kalmbach Publishing Co.).May2005, Vol. 118 Issue 5, p42-44. 3p. 1 Color Photograph.
Document Type:
Article
Subject Terms:
*LITERARY style *POINT of view (Literature) *CHARACTERS & characteristics in literature *SETTING (Literature)
Reviews & Products:
OCCURRENCE at Owl Creek Bridge, An (Short story)
People:
BIERCE, Ambrose, 1842-ca. 1914
Abstract:
This article presents information on the literary tools used by Ambrose Bierce in writing the short story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Selection of the point of view; Sympathetic characterization; Components of the physical setting.
Anatomy of a Classic
Ambrose Bierce cleverly used some key literary tools in crafting his Civil War tale 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'
GENERATIONS OF readers have cheered Peyton Farquhar's miraculous last-minute escape from the hangman's noose in Ambrose Bierce's famous 1890 story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." And more people cheered the escape when the story was dramatized on The Twilight Zone. Readers and viewers will recall the basic plot--but stop right here if you wish to read the story first to learn its ending, then return to this article.
Farquhar, a civilian planter, is being hanged by Union troops during the Civil War for trying to burn the Owl Creek railway bridge and halt their advance into Alabama. We're led to believe that he manages an escape, but in the last line of the story, we are shocked to learn that Farquhar did actually die at the end of the rope.
How has Bierce (1842-circa 1914), a well-known short-story writer and journalist of his time, managed to fool us with his narrative magic--magic that we, too, can learn to control? The answer lies in the way he wields these writer's tools: a perfectly apt point of view, sympathetic characterization, a well-chosen setting, a rapidly paced plot and realistic concrete detail. Let's take a look at each and unearth this story's building blocks.
Bierce chooses the only point of view possible for concealing Farquhar's death--a first necessity if he wishes to mystify us. This perspective, often called limited omniscience, features a third-person narrator who tells the story as an observer offstage. By definition, this narrator potentially knows all things pertinent to the story, even a character's very thoughts. Limited omniscience, however, chooses the mind of only one character--in this case, Farquhar's--and enters it extensively. At any time, this narrator can move into the chosen character's mind and thoughts, or tell us about the outward world of the story.
After describing the immediate preparations for the hanging, Bierce's narrator flashes back to earlier events, when Farquhar was lured to the bridge, then returns to Farquhar as he awaits his death. Farquhar thinks of his wife and children, and considers possibilities of escape. Just as Farquhar drops at the end of the rope, the narrator enters Farquhar's mind and stays there through Farquhar's entire hallucination of escape.
There is no way we can know his escape is unreal until the last line of the story, when the narrator emerges from Farquhar's mind to tell us he is dead. Bierce does play fair with us, however, because his point of view legitimately forces us to experience Farquhar's hallucinated escape and thus believe in it. Though this perspective allows Bierce at least a chance to fool us into accepting the escape, he marshals other narrative tools to disarm skepticism.
Bierce portrays Farquhar as a sympathetic character we can identify with--a man who takes care of his family and home. The Owl Creek railroad bridge is all that stands between the Union advance into this as-yet-unoccupied area of Alabama, where Farquhar's homestead lies. His attempt to burn down the bridge may be seen as an attempt to defend his home and family, rather than help the Confederacy. That he is lured to the bridge by a Union scout disguised as a Confederate, and that Farquhar and his wife share the hospitality of their home with this soldier, add to our sympathy for Farquhar. We see his hanging as harsh and unfair. Thus, we are disposed to hope that Farquhar will escape execution and are less likely to question the escape when it seems to happen.
The time and place also contribute both to increased sympathy for Farquhar and greater belief in his imagined escape. There are very few times when the military could summarily execute a civilian. The Civil War setting makes this event plausible, but Farquhar seems more of a victim who has tried to defend his home and family. Further, the war itself is kept in the background. No baffles are depicted, and civil wars often appear morally ambiguous. The execution seems an overreaction. Again, we sympathize with Farquhar and hope he will escape.
The physical setting, including the arrangements for the hanging and the actual location of the soldiers on and off the bridge, further enhances our belief in Farquhar's escape. No gallows has been built. Instead, the rope has been strung from an overhead timber in the middle of the Owl Creek railroad bridge. Farquhar stands on a plank suspended over the space between two of the railroad ties, his hands bound and the noose around his neck. A soldier stands on the supported end of the plank. When the soldier steps off the plank, Farquhar's weight will tip his end and send him plunging between the two ties, stretching the rope tight.
A captain and one other soldier are also on the bridge with Farquhar. Only the captain is armed, and merely with a pistol. An armed sentry is posted at the entrance ramp to either end of the bridge. Twenty feet below the bridge is a deep river with a swift current. The rest of the company of soldiers stands at parade rest on the northern bank of the river. On the southern bank is a dense forest.
Before Farquhar is dropped to his death, he thinks that if he could untie his hands and slip off the noose, he could dive into the river, swim underwater to where the forest begins, and get back home. When Farquhar hallucinates that the rope has broken and he is in the water, we believe he might escape. On a conventional gallows, he would easily be recaptured because there would be solid ground beneath and no river to save him. But here, neither sentry is likely well positioned to fire accurately. On the bridge, the captain has only a pistol, probably not with a long or accurate range, and the muzzle-loading rifles of the Civil War era delay the shots and disturb the accuracy of the first rounds from the main body of soldiers. Besides, the river current makes Farquhar a moving target hard to hit. Thus, the Civil War setting and the physical setting bolster our sympathy for Farquhar and our belief in his escape.
If this combination of point of view, sympathetic characterization and skillful use of setting has not fully convinced us of Farquhar's escape, Bierce cleverly blends a rapid series of dangers with realistic concrete detail to complete the illusion.
We might possibly wonder how Farquhar avoids a broken neck if his jolt at the end of the rope is enough to snap the rope. Here is where Bierce's use of a rapidly paced plot comes in. Before we have time to ponder the likelihood of a broken neck, Bierce has Farquhar struggling not to drown. He sinks deep when he hits the water, his hands still tied and the noose still around his neck. So we focus on his immediate problem and forget to think about his unlikely escape from a broken neck. Somehow, Farquhar frees his hands and slips off the noose--never mind that a hangman's noose, if tied tight, could not be loosened. (Of course, the soldiers may not have used the traditional knot.) But again, we are so relieved that Farquhar escapes drowning that we do not examine these unlikely events either.
Then, as he bursts to the surface for air, the soldiers start firing at him, diverting our attention once more from his previous escape from the ropes and drowning. Now the immediate challenge involves evading the soldiers' bullets. Hence, the rapid pace of these several dangers--each being a new diversion from the previous unlikely escapes--lends credibility to the escapes.
Realistic concrete detail completes the plausibility of Farquhar's escape. After the first sporadic rounds, when he hears the captain give the order to fire in unison, Farquhar dives deep. Some of the spent bullets, still warm from the guns, spiral down in the water. "One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out." Such bits of realism help us believe Farquhar is really escaping. When he surfaces again, the current has taken him out of range of the personal weapons, but now the cannon is used. The first shot misses but sprays him with water. He knows the second shot will be grapeshot--shrapnel--that will surely hit him. Suddenly, the current whirls him around a bend in the river and throws him up on the forested bank, out of cannon aim, though he hears a charge of grapeshot fly through nearby branches in a final futile shot.
At this stage of the story, we are glad Farquhar has escaped. While the rapid series of dangers has disarmed criticism of the probability of each escape, the realistic concrete detail convinces us he is now on the way to finishing his escape by losing himself in the dense forest and getting back home, where the Union troops have not yet penetrated.
The rest of the story depicts the long and weary trek Farquhar takes to his home. He becomes more and more exhausted and disoriented. He encounters no signs of any dwellings or settlements, and does not recognize any of the constellations in the sky. These later details, however, ironically seem realistic because Farquhar attributes this strangeness to his extreme exhaustion. So do we, the readers.
Farquhar continues on and finally comes to the gate of his own home. His beautiful wife holds out her hands in joyous welcome. As Farquhar reaches out to embrace her, he feels a "stunning blow" to his neck, sees a "blinding white light," hears "a sound like the shock of a cannon--then all is darkness and silence!"
At this point, the limited omniscient narrator moves out of Farquhar's mind and returns to the objective world on the bridge, giving us the shocking last line and the revelation that, all along, the escape was Farquhar's dying hallucination: "Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge."
Thus, Bierce magically blends the only point of view (limited omniscience) that will conceal Farquhar's death until the end, sympathetic characterization that makes us uncritical of his escape because we want to believe it, a Civil War setting that validates why the military would summarily execute a civilian, a physical location that makes the escape seem possible, a rapidly paced plot of narrow escapes from death that tends to distract us from closely examining these escapes, and concrete details that make the final escape seem real.
Bierce's story is a vivid reminder of how narrative techniques we may take for granted become powerful when combined by a master magician of words. We could all do worse than take a hint from Ambrose Bierce when we ply our own word magic.
For more about Ambrose Bierce, go to The Writer Web site and click on "Online Extra?
PHOTO (COLOR)
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By Daniel E. Samide
A retired professor of English and former journalist, Daniel E. Samide blends his love of reading with a lifelong fascination with writing techniques.
