An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge: Literary Analysis An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, a short story with a setting during the Civil War, was written by Ambrose Bierce in 1890. The main character, Peyton Farquhar, is caught messing with the bridge and is sentenced to hang. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was a story that Bierce designed to captivate readers attention by entering the mind of Farquhar. Before he is about to hang, Farquhar begins to day dream escaping back to his family. The entire story takes the reader on a journey as if Farquhar was not in the predicament we find him in the opening paragraphs. However, the ending paragraphs clearly explain of how Farquhar was only dreaming of everything and eventually hung. Bierce effectively uses flashbacks, setting, and Farquhar’s senses to create a suspenseful mood in the story. Bierce utilizes flashbacks to describe the lifestyle Farquhar led before he was caught messing with the bridge. The story describes Farquhar’s life and work by telling how he is “a well-to-do plantar, as well as a slave owner who is devoted to the Southern cause” (84). Bierce mixes a bit of foreshadowing and suspense within one flashback. Farquhar has a soldier at his home asking for a drink of water (in that time, this was normal). The soldier begins to tell Farquhar, “The Yanks are repairing the railroads...any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels, or trains will be summarily hanged” (85). This creates a hostile
mood as the reader previously learned that Farquhar is a Southern Plantation owner and it is learned that the soldier is a Federal scout from the north. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge mainly takes place in a forest which is instrumental in the suspense to the story. Awaiting his deathbed, Farquhar looks around to find someone, however “...nobody was in sight; the railroad ran straight away into the a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view” (83). He has a feeling that...