In Ambrose Bierce's short story, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the reader must be mislead in order to have much of a story to tell. Without this trickery there would be little to the plot, and a much less substantial climax if one at all. The trickery is the apparent escape of Peyton Farquhar when the reader in lead to believe that the rope from which hi is being hung breaks. He is then frantically freeing himself, although at ties against his own will, and reaches safety after quite a struggle. When Farquhar arrives home to his beautiful wife, the reader soon learns that this entire endeavor to return home was just a figment of Farquhar's imagination.
When looking back this "untruth" seems far-fetched to say the least, but by being such an unlikely occurrence it relied heavily on the reader willing it to be true. The same can be said for the power of Farquhar's mind. He willed himself to believe the daydream that he made it home to his wife and children rather than having accepted his death. The likability of the gentleman, the fact that he has a family, and the courage to fight for what he believes in, made many a reader cheer for him and want his dream to be true rather than his reality.
It is not necessarily the likeliness of a happening that makes it believable, but possibly how much the audience wants it to happen.
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