Journal #1 Bierce

Liana Laskin

English 48B

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce

January 7, 2009

"The state or condition of a community consisting of a master, a mistress, and two slaves, making in all, two." (Bierce's definition of marriage)

Summary:

The story takes place during the civil war and features a southern planter, Peyton Farquhar, who is about to be hanged by Union soldiers. It is separated into three sections: the moments before the hanging, Farquhar leaving deciding to leave and get across the bridge, and after he is hanged.

Response:

I feel like each section in a way is written by a different person based on how the character of Farquhar is looked at. In section one, the perspective is a third person point of view, but not omniscient as the reader does not know what the characters are thinking. The writing is almost as formal and cold as the soldiers preparing to hang Fauquhar, making me think that if there was a specific narrator for this section, they would be on the side of the Union soldiers rather than the Confederates. As the section ends, I could almost feel the suspense that Farquhar was feeling, especially in the line where the "ticking of his watch" took the place of the thudding heartbeat (Bierce, 361). Section two, which is quite short (less than a page), would be from the persepctive of someone who is biased towards the Confederates considering it shows Farquhar and his wife; I believe this section is the shortest because of what Bierce's idea of marriage is (see quote above). The last section is definitely omniscient third person as it focuses on what Farquhar is thinking and his perspective after being hanged and later going down the river. I have never read a story with a hanging that actually gave the perspective of the victim after being hanged (I would asume it is because most of the time the person's weight ends up breaking their neck and killing them almost instantly). I thought the plot twist at the end was pretty cool because I thought things were going to work out differently for Farquhar because of how he was portrayed in the frist two sections.