"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce takes you on a whirl-wind tour of life and death during the throes of Civil War in only a short amount of words. It effectively documents the dangers of hope and imagination while still reaffirming the need for them. The story largely takes place in the mind of a dying man. Peyton Farquar conjures up a means of escape from death, as he stands with a noose around his neck. In his imagination, the rope breaks, and he falls in the river, swimming down stream dodging bullets and cannon fire, runs through the forrest, finally reaching home, only to end up at the end of the aforementioned noose. We as readers do not realize until the very end that it was all in his head. However there are subtle hints. Such as in the title. I doubt that an escape would be categorized as an 'occurrence', but much rather an 'event'. If he did escape, it should have been called "An Event at Owl Creek Bridge". Or perhaps that only makes sense to me.
I also found it interesting that he dies on the very bridge he intended to destroy, and dies for his intention of doing so. The sound of his watch towards the beginning was also eery, as I'm sure it signified how little time he had left. I guess in the end this story showed that death is only scary to people who have not accepted it as an inevitability.
I'd also like to suggest to everyone to watch the French short film version of this story, that was shown on an episode of The Twilight Zone in 1964. I think it's on YouTube.
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