An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge PDF

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Burgos 1 Elijah Burgos EL-134-NU-20: Fiction Dr. Walonen 5/4/20 Subjectivity of Reality and Time in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" In 1890, author Ambrose Bierce published one of the most famous short stories in American literature titled “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” The story was adapted to a French film in 1963 titled La rivière du hibou, and was aired a year later on the famous television series The Twilight Zone. Ambrose Bierce fought in numerous American Civil War battles in the early years of his life, and later became an editor, wrote for magazines in London, and an author shortly after. Later in his life, he became known as “Bitter Bierce” after dealing with his separation from his wife, and losing his two sons. Being well known for writing about darker themes, in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Bierce explores concepts of time, reality, death, disillusionment, and war in a story that takes place in the southern states during the American Civil War. Through the death of the protagonist of the story Peyton Farquhar, a slave owner who was “ardently devoted to the Southern cause”, Bierce depicts that the natures of our experiences of reality, and our perceptions of time are subjective. The style used in the story known as “stream of consciousness” narration was pioneered by Bierce, as he was one of the primary examples of an author who used it effectively. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” begins with Bierce setting the ominous tone by presenting a civilian man named Peyton Farquhar in the last few moments of his life, as he is going to be hanged. Bierce transitions from the first section taking place in present time, to the second section, going back in time to explain why Farquhar is being hanged. From this flash

Burgos 2 back, we learn that a Union army spy disguised as a Confederate soldier baited Farquhar into attempting to burn down the bridge, by telling him of the Union's plan to cross the bridge. Throughout the story, Bierce purposefully transitions between the past and present to allow the reader to experience reality the same way the protagonist does. Next, after having unrealistic luck that seems too good to be true, Farquhar escapes the soldiers, making it back to his home. Bierce proceeds to unexpectedly shift the story back to the present scene on the bridge, where Farquhar is hanged and dead. The ending of the story reveals Bierce’s use of stream of consciousness narration which allows the reader to experience reality as does the protagonist, in which the essence of time vanishes and the reader is able to understand the thoughts, feelings, emotions, and overall mental state of Farquhar. In an article titled “Spacial Stream of Consciousness” published by Johns Hopkins University Press, Joshua Armstrong comments on stream of consciousness writing saying, “Stream of consciousness, in its heyday… aimed to provide access to the ‘innermost thoughts’ of a character, thoughts found just on the cusp of the ‘subconscious,’ thoughts that have not yet been ‘logically organized’; it provided this access via a style of writing that ‘reduced syntax to the minimum’ in order to give the impression of the ‘tout venant,’ or the unfiltered flow of subjectivity ... Stream of consciousness was a product of its time. It developed alongside Freud’s psychoanalysis, … Impressionism, Surrealism—all intellectual and artistic enterprises that sought truth by attempting to access consciousness and perception at its very source. Such currents of thought favored subjectivity over objectivity, eschewed logic and rationalism in favor of what Valéry Larbaud called ‘natural’ … spontaneity of perception and thought. Stream of consciousness ... was seen as an instrument capable of capturing something crucial: ...‘the gushing forth of thought’... that is, the truth of subjective experience itself, before it's modification and ultimate obscuring by rationalizing and socializing

Burgos 3 filters” (Armstrong 7). Armstrong encapsulates Bierce’s entire purpose in using stream of conscious writing, as he indeed provides access to the “innermost thoughts’ of our protagonist. Rather than plainly writing “his life flashed before his eyes” Bierce portrays an entire reality existing in Farquhar’s mind, which allows the story to stand out for it's unique ability to allow the reader to experience time on the same level as the protagonist. In writing “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” Bierce portrays his version of the psychological phenomenon known as a “life review”. Farquhar experiences what is commonly referred to as someone’s “life flashing before their own eyes” which is often said to happen when individuals have a near death experience. In a research article titled “Life Reflection: A SocialCognitive Analysis of Life Review” Ursula Staudinger writes about life review saying, “This overarching function of life reflection may also be called ‘epistemic’ and ‘emancipatory.’ It is ‘epistemic’ in the sense that by reflecting about life, we ideally acquire knowledge about ourselves and about life in general … the kind of knowledge emerging from life reflection is not encyclopedic knowledge but rather personal knowledge ... The qualifier ‘emancipatory’ ... implies that, under ideal conditions, life reflection helps us transcend extant structures of ‘knowledge’ and self-understanding” (Staudinger 151). The knowledge referred to here, allows for a deeper understanding of one's own existence through the experience of a life reflection. Bierce writes about Farquhar’s life reflection experience saying, “He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf--saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-

Burgos 4 bodied flies, the grey spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, the strokes of the waterspiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat--all these made audible music” (Bierce 489). Bierce transcends objective reality in this instance, transitioning the reader into Farquhar’s first hand experience of a life review. Farquhar is not reliving an experience that actually happened, but rather sensually and psychologically experiencing an alternative reality in which he survives his hanging. Similar to the phenomenological experiences of other individuals, the time spent in the reality of a life review is perceived subjectively, and is vastly different from time experienced in objective reality. Farquhar notices “things never before perceived” and details that were previously minute, become noticeably significant in this new dream like reality. Bierce writes about the details of this dream like life review saying, “Objects were represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color--that was all he saw ... The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of olian harps. He had no wish to perfect his escape--was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken” (Bierce 490). Bierce’s use of imagery here depicts Farquhar’s vivid imagination in such an artful manner, that it creates a transcendent experience for the reader. Although “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” may be read as having a somber ending, it's illustrative ability to depict a unique version of experiencing a life reflection is unparalleled. Upon initial reading, Bierce is able to put readers through a rollercoaster of emotions, by giving what seems to be a happy ending, then choosing a more realistic one. The story is so skillfully

Burgos 5 detailed and insightful, that readers can easily feel as if they were Farquhar, which would not be possible without combining the use of stream of consciousness writing, and Bierce’s rendition of experiencing a life reflection. In creating a subjective reality within the objective reality of the story, Bierce manipulates the experience of time for the reader and the protagonist, establishing a unique connecting between them, making the story much more effective. Lastly, the lessons that Bierce explores within “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” help us understand the philosophical concept of finding meaning in life through death. In facing his mortality, Farquhar experiences a subjective reality in his psyche, which changed the function of time so that he was truly able to appreciate the essence of being alive on an unprecedented level.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Joshua. "Spatial Stream of Consciousness." SubStance, vol. 48 no. 1, 2019, p. 5-25. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/article/719601.

Burgos 6 Bierce, Ambrose. “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” An Introduction to Fiction, by Joseph Charles Kennedy and Dana Gioia, Longman, 2010, pp. 485–491. Staudinger, Ursula M. “Life Reflection: A Social–Cognitive Analysis of Life Review.” Review of General Psychology, vol. 5, no. 2, 2001, pp. 148–160., doi:10.1037/10892680.5.2.148. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Ambrose Bierce.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1 Jan. 2020, www.britannica.com/biography/AmbroseBierce....