An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

“Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded.”

This short quotation shows the reader that during the Civil War civilians were treated with the same punishments as soldiers. The military took sabotage seriously and everyone was treated the same no matter their status. Farquhar knows this and excepts his fate with no outward signs of objection.

“Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of the death knell. He awaited each new stroke with impatience—and he knew not why—apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ears like the trust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.”

This passage highlights the anxiety and fear that Farquhar is feeling. He is listening to the ticking of his watch, but he is not able to place the sound. His mind is racing and with each passing second his fear is rising. He clearly wants to scream. It also showcases Bierce’s ability to play with time and the perception of reality. The sound is emphasized by the absence of sound.

“If I could free my hands, he thought, I might throw off the noose and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and, swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.”

This passage conveys Farquhar’s last thoughts before he falls to his death. He wishes to escape home to his family, which is outside the reach of the enemy. If Farquhar had thought of his family from the beginning, then he wouldn’t be in the hangman’s noose. He fantasizes about how he can escape, which in Part 3 he will play out in his mind as he dies.

“Peyton Farquhar was a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other slave owners a politician, he was naturally an original secessionist and ardently devoted to the Southern cause.”

The reader is given a characterization of Farquhar. We learn that he is a Confederate sympathizer who believes in the cause. Farquhar is interested in anything that will help the South. Readers will have mixed reactions to this information since the protagonist of the story is not a likable person.

“No service was too humble for him to perform in the aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous dictum that all is fair in love and war.”

This passage demonstrates how far Farquhar will go to serve the South. He has bought into the hero-system rhetoric that pushes men and women to seek glory even at the risk of death. He believes he has the heart of a soldier, and he is itching for his chance to make up for his inability to join the Confederate Army. Readers will notice that he believes the idiom “all is fair in love and war,” but Bierce calls it villainous. This aside signifies that Bierce may believe that rhetoric like this does no good. It leads those unqualified and unschooled in war to risk their lives needlessly.

“An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation, going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a Federal scout.”

This quotation shows that the man Farquhar was talking to about burning the Owl Creek Bridge is a spy. The idea is planted in his head by the scout, and Farquhar, under the impression that he can win glory, falls for the scout’s lies. The reader doesn’t know that the gray-clad man is a spy until this moment. This passage also highlights Bierce’s ability to hide information from the reader until he is ready to reveal it.

“As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge, he lost consciousness and was as one already dead.”

The image of Farquhar’s fall foreshadows that he is actually dead. The phrase “was as one already dead” clues the reader in that Farquhar is still in the noose. There are also parallels to hangings that Bierce had seen in real life. He knew that the body didn’t always die right away. Sometimes, it took up to 15 minutes for the heart to stop. This passage also begins Part 3 and sets up Farquhar’s daring escape.

“The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and the feeling was torment.”

This passage is another clue that Farquhar is already dead. All he can feel is the pain; his intellect has been erased. No thoughts can come.

“Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum.”

This quotation shows that his body is swinging from the Owl Creek Bridge. He is swinging back and forth on the rope. This feeling of swinging plays a part later in the story after he falls into the water and is swept away with the river. The image is planted here as another clue that Farquhar hasn’t escaped the rope. It acts as both foreshadowing and the beginning of the stream of consciousness of Farquhar’s last minutes of life.

“He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake.”

Bierce sprinkles many clues that show that Farquhar is dead, and here the reader sees another one. If reading through the psychoanalytic lens, this passage is a clue that Farquhar is experiencing death as a kind of birth. The rope is equivalent to the umbilical cord.

“They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol, but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.”

Farquhar is in the midst of his escape, and the significance of this quotation is in how the soldiers look: grotesque and horrible. Farquhar is free of the rope and is now attempting to get as far away from the bridge as fast as possible. Bierce is playing with dream logic allowing the men to appear as giants. Once again, the reader is given a clue that Farquhar isn’t in the river.

“He observed that gray eyes were keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this one had missed.”

Farquhar can see through the sight of the gun to the eye of the man on the bridge. The reader is experiencing more dream logic as presumably eye color would not be visible at such a distance. Both the marksman and Farquhar share gray eyes. The color gray is used to blur the lines between who is a friend and who is not. Farquhar believes the man in gray to be a Confederate not dreaming that he is a spy. Here, Farquhar believed that gray eyes are keenest, but the man had missed his mark.

“He stands at the gate of his own home. All is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine. He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forwards with extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow upon the back of his neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and silence!”

Farquhar has finally escaped and made it home. The reader believes that he is going to be safe from the enemy. He sees his wife waiting for him. The escape is a delusion to help Farquhar cope with the physical pain of dying. Bierce manipulates time creating a fluid, dream-like sequence to show what happens when the brain dies. This last scene is the end of Farquhar’s life. The white blaze of light that is associated with the afterlife is the last bit of color he sees. The cannon sound is his neck breaking.