page_title: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
section_title: Themes
hierarchical_section_title: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge / Themes
caption_attribution_description: English: Ambrose Bierce.
context_page_description: "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is a short story by the American writer and Civil War veteran Ambrose Bierce. Described as "one of the most famous and frequently anthologized stories in American literature", it was originally published by The San Francisco Examiner on July 13, 1890, and was first collected in Bierce's book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. The story, which is set during the American Civil War, is known for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is an early example of the stream of consciousness narrative mode.
context_section_description: This short story suggests that of "dying with dignity". The story shows the reader that the perception of "dignity" provides no mitigation for the deaths that occur in warfare. The final idea is the idea of psychological escape right before death. Farquhar experiences an intense delusion to distract him from his inevitable death. The moment of horror that the readers experience at the end of the piece, when they realize that he dies, reflects the distortion of reality that Farquhar encounters.
  Since it is not (only) the narrator who tells a story but (also) the reader themself another aspect is of considerable importance here. As he himself once put it, (bitter) Bierce detested "... bad readers—readers who, lacking the habit of analysis, lack also the faculty of discrimination, and take whatever is put before them, with the broad, blind catholicity of a slop-fed conscience of a parlor pig".
  Farquhar was duped by a Federal scout—and cursory readers on their part are successfully duped by the author who makes them think they are witnessing Farquhar's lucky escape from the gallows. Instead, they only witness the hallucination of such an escape taking place in the character's unconscious mind which is governed by the instinct of self-preservation. In retrospect we see that the title—if taken literally—from the outset provides the readers with the information that there will not be any change of scenery at all because simply an occurrence at that bridge is announced.
caption: Ambrose Bierce, c. 1866
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