"Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce is an excellent story, one I had read many times. In the story, Peyton Farquhar is sentenced to death by hanging for committing treason by trying to destroy one of the bridges the Yankees were trying to rebuild. The story leads us to believe that Peyton was captured before he could do any damage to the bridge because the beginning of the story opens up with him about to be hung in front of the town. And the rest of the story tells us how he planned to escape from the noose and go back to his family. And it leads us to believe that he does escape because it goes into elaborate detail of how he escaped and how the soldiers were firing guns and cannons at him and how he had dodged them all. Besides the blow to his shoulder from a gun shot Peyton Farquhar seems to have no other damage afflicted to him. Then, it tells how once he escapes from the soldiers he walks down a path he is unfamiliar with only to find his way home to his family. But, the next thing you know it comes back to reality to him being killed by having his neck snapped.
If I had not already read the story a few times in the past, this would have shocked me because the whole time a little piece of you wants to see him escape and return to his family because he did not seem like a bad person, he was just trying to help his fellow brothers fighting for the cause. I always enjoy reading this story because it gives you an outlook on how life used to be back then. There were no lethal injections or the electric chair there were death by hangings and to me, I think that would be the worst way to go because you didnt always die right away. And if I were in Peytons shoes I would also try to imagine escaping because who wants to think about themselves dying at any point why not make the best out of a bad situation.
The only thing about this story that I didnt like was the fact that they did not go into any detail about why he was being hung, I wish they had a section about what he had done at the bridge to be hung because that would have made the story even more suspenseful then it already was.
Yeah- I wanted to know if he'd at all succeeded in getting to the base of the bridge to try to sabotage it, too. It seems, though, that the Federal Spy just set him up for ultimate failure and death.
ReplyDeleteI know, this guy had slaves and he didn't seem to have a real legitimate reason for not joining the war as a soldier other than he was rich, but I still liked him enough to want him to reach his wife in the end.