“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890) Ambrose Bierce

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890)

Ambrose Bierce

Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)

Journalist, essayist, fiction writer known for his biting wit and mysterious death

Born in Ohio, 10th of 13 children, all with names beginning with “A”; raised on farm in Indiana

Worked as printer’s apprentice on anti-slavery newspaper

Union soldier in Civil War, rose to rank of lieutenant; at Kenesaw Mountain, bullet in skull behind ear


1870s-80s: journalist and writer in San Francisco (later with Hearst publications) 1872-75: magazine writer in London

Wrote stories about the War and about California: unsentimental & disillusioned; he read Stoic philosophy

Married wealthy miner’s daughter in 1871; divorced in 1905

The Devil’s Dictionary (1911) is his often-quoted book of cynical definitions: Happiness: “an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.”


1900-1913: mainly in Washington as political lobbyist for Hearst and journalist

Sept. 10, 1913, age 71: "I am going away to South America, and have not the faintest notion when I shall return.”

He posted a letter from Mexico, then vanished; possibly killed in Mexican Civil War

“Occurrence” setting: northern Alabama

Civil War (1861-65): Union (North) vs. Confederacy (South)

Film Version

French, directed by Robert Enrico, 1962, 28 min. Starring Roger Jacquet

Best short subject at Academy Awards, 1963 Broadcast as an episode of the TV series

The Twilight Zone, in 1964 Images from the film are featured in this

presentation

Vision vs. Reality

“Occurrence” plays games with vision and reality, on two levels The apparent Confederate soldier is in fact a “Federal

[Union] scout” Farquhar’s apparent escape is only imaginary

The confusion is not only Farquhar’s but the reader’s as well

Ultimately vision & reality are clearly defined; no supernatural dimension as in “Rip Van Winkle”

Structure

Section I: Present; Realism: Military Ritual of Hanging; hint of subjectivity/fantasy

Section II: Flashback; Realism/Satire: Framing of Peyton Farquhar by Union spy

Section III: PresentFuture; Fantasy; ends realistically in present

Realism: Military Ritual

Section 1; ¶1-2: Bierce establishes texture of reality through close description of execution scene: bodily positions, military rank, physical equipment, etc.

¶2, end: the formality of the scene associated with Death

¶3: description of protagonist appeals to historical reality and reader’s sympathy: “kindly expression”

Realism/Satire: Framing of Peyton Farquhar Section II; ¶8-17: Southern gentry portrayed

through Bierce’s Northern satiric perspective: “Being a slave owner and like other slave owners

a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause” (¶8)

“the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war” (¶8)

“Mrs. Farquhar was only too happy to serve him with her own white hands” (¶9)

Ultimate irony: Soldier was a Union spy

Subjectivity/Fantasy (1)

Section 1; ¶4, end: subjectivity enters narrative: Narrator’s detached intellect:

“simple and effective” “‘unsteadfast footing’”: quote from Shakespeare’s Henry

IV, Part I Time appears to slow down:

“stream racing madly” “sluggish stream” Slowing of his watch, increase in volume


Section I; ¶6: “Flash” of thought expressed as words: “If I could free my hands. . . .”

Section III; ¶18: loss of consciousness; reawakening “ages later, it seemed”; pain of hanging, “unaccompanied by thought”

Thought restored: impression that rope has broken and he is in stream

¶19: Detached from himself: “watched” his hands free themselves and remove noose; he surfaces


¶20: Senses “preternaturally keen and alert”; observes natural world Ripples of stream Leaves of trees, insects Dewdrops on blades of grass Gnats, dragon flies, water spiders, fish


¶21: Sees his executioners: “their forms gigantic”

¶22: One of sentinels fires rifle; Farquhar sees his “gray eye” looking into the rifle sights: an impossible perception Note: Farquhar’s own eye is gray (¶3)

¶25: Bullets fired; one lodges in his neck and “he snatched it out” (unrealistic detail)

¶30: cannon fired


¶31: whirling: “Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color”; similar to painterly expressionism, e.g., The Scream (1893; same decade as Bierce’s story) by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch (1863-1944); see next slide


Details suggest artificial, dreamlike setting: ¶31: Sand like “diamonds, rubies, emeralds; trees

“giant garden plants; he noted a definite order to their arrangement”

¶33: “forest seemed interminable”; “He had not known that he lived in so wild a region”: uncanny

¶34: Nightfall: road “wide and straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered it, no dwellings anywhere.”


Some details hint at menace, threat: ¶34: “black bodies of trees formed a straight wall

on both sides” “strange constellations”: “secret and malign

significance” “whispers in an unknown tongue”

Re-emergence of Reality

¶35: Hints that Farquhar is still in the noose: Neck pain Eyes congested, unable to close Tongue swollen, thrust out Feet suspended above ground

Final Fantasy, Then Reality

¶36: Morning: approaches home Wife standing to meet him: “fresh and cool

and sweet,” “smile of ineffable joy” Farquhar “springs forwards with extended

arms”; “stunning blow to back of neck”; “blinding white light”; “darkness and silence”

¶37: “Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek bridge.”

Conclusion

“Occurrence” is a psychological study of consciousness and its struggle against death

Like the other stories in this section, it portrays a man lost in a journey beyond the home, trying to regain his place

Like “Rip Van Winkle,” there is a political dimension: here the Civil War Southern Plantation life portrayed as fantasy

Documents

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890) Ambrose Bierce