Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce used imagination and an adventurous story line to fool the readers of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. He starts by explaining the poor circumstances that Peyton Farquhar had found himself in. He was standing on two makeshift planks off of the Owl Creek Bridge, and he had his hands bound and a rope around his neck (Bierce 393). Farquhar was being forced to oblige with the both physically and mentally painful activity by a group of soldiers. The reader is never informed of why Farquhar is tied up. He supported the Confederate army, but because of an injury, he could not fight in the war. The reader can only assume what Peyton must have done to be tied up to a noose on a bridge. Bierce makes several references to imagination and memories in the story. He writes, “He was now full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert” (Bierce 393). It isn’t until the end of the story that we realize that Farquhar’s adventure through the forest and visits with his family are all just a dream. He is back shadowing on the happiest moments of his life to take his mind off of reality. It is not until the final paragraphs that when Peyton Farquahar feels a tightening at his throat when the readers learn that a greater portion of the story was all just a dream. The dream feature was an interesting twist on the somewhat common war story.

The encouragement of imagination in writing began in the Romanticism period. Nature and the outdoors was another influence for the literature period. Fast forward to the Transcendentalism period and many of the same philosophies are used. Nature was often a place where authors would go to find themselves. Both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau valued nature and saw how important source it was. Emerson even believed that we are educated by nature and our actions.

Bierce, Ambrose. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge". Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 389-396. Print.