Supernatural and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The Supernatural episode shows multiple examples of the ways in which the characters are manipulated by one another, and how they are manipulated by their own destinies.  Throughout the episode, Sam and Dean attempt to avoid their fates by going against what Chuck, the author of the stories, writes down.  However, by avoiding their fates, they walk directly into them.  For example, they purposefully rent a room at a hotel that is not called “Red”, though the lights on the sign blow out, making the hotel show the exact name they were avoiding.  Their fates are manipulating them, even as they try to go against them.  Lilith also uses manipulation to almost coerce Sam into self—sacrifice.  She knows he would rather sacrifice himself than let six million people die and she tells him this.  She is almost able to manipulate him by tapping into his empathy and guilt.  This connects to An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge because as readers, we are being manipulated into thinking Peyton Farquhar actually escaped his hanging.  Through the many details provided, we believe he did the impossible.  And we are being manipulated into rooting for him to survive.  That is, until the author brings us back to reality and we realize we were hearing about the character’s hallucination, and not the actual actions taking place.                  

The truth will set you free?

The proverbial saying goes: “the truth will set you free”. However, in the case of Peyton Farquhar in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”, the opposite occurs. As Farquhar is sent to his death, Ambrose Bierce (the author) paints a miraculous story of this man’s escape from his hanging. Farquhar evades bullets, manages to free himself from his noose, and even return home. The reader plays into this lie because they want the protagonist to live because Bierce has created a relationship of sympathy between Farquhar and the reader. The truth is revealed at the end of the story when Farquhar is seconds away from holding his wife and is transported back to his death.

            However, the most evil lie in this story is the one in which perpetuated the plot. A man dressed in a grey uniform (from the Confederate Army), tells Farquhar and his wife of the Yankee’s holding over Owl Creek Bridge. This information makes Farquhar want to eradicate the Union from the bridge and decides to take action into his own hands. This is an unfortunate circumstance because, little to Farquhar’s knowledge, the Confederate officer was actually a spy from the Union army. It was almost as if the Yankee wanted Farquhar to seek his own death along with any other southerner he could spite. This lie is the sole reason as to why the next lie of Farquhar evading death occurs. Without this original lie, there would be no story. In Peyton Farquhar’s situation, the real truth actually sent him to his own death, rather than to his escape.