Surname 1 Name Instructor Course Date An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Literally Analysis Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is an interesting tale with a distinct plot twist. The author skilfully incorporates the element of time as an effective way of manipulating his audiences’ perspective. The intentional time distortion helps Bierce disrupt the perception of the reality in such a way that the reader cannot distinguish the actual reality from the perceived reality. During this period of unfamiliarity, Bierce forces his audience into questioning the possibility of a profound assumption on Peyton Farquhar’s true character. By brilliantly interweaving imagery and soliloquy, Bierce manages to take the reader on an adventure into the mind of a man condemned to death by hanging moments before his death, a journey yielding numerous questions about time and reality. Reading Bierce’s story makes the reader feel an intensive intuition and attachment to the events occurring throughout the tale. This sensation comes with the conscious imagery portrayed by the author. According to Kao and Jurafsky, “Effective imagery allows readers to bring in their own associations to understand and truly experience a new emotion, and skilled poets and writers are able to pick out specific sensory details that evoke deeper abstractions and generalizations” (4). Bierce effectively manages to generate the experience in his audience by explicitly painting the events as they occur from the first statement to the last. The story begins, “A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The Surname 2 man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck” (Bierce 1). From these first statements, the reader can clearly see the events just in the same way the author intended. The images evoke sadness and they depict death by execution, an event raising questions about the crimes committed by the man. Kao and Jurafsky go further to affirm that “skilled poets are more likely to describe concrete objects and less likely to reference abstract concepts” (4). This is evident in Bierce’s work considering that describes actual and existing objects that the reader can relate and imagine. For instance, in his description, the author says, “A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon the ground, his left hand resting upon his right” (Bierce 1). He adds, “A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream!” (Bierce 2). These two occurrences show the author’s impressive skills in the use of imagery. Every detail explained in the story is vivid to the extent that readers can completely appreciate the author’s efforts. In other words, Bierce evokes a strong connection between the audience and his piece. Apart from imagery, Bierce also incorporates soliloquy in his work. Soliloquy is “an instance of talking to or conversing with oneself, or of uttering one's thoughts aloud without addressing any person” (Davis 179). Bierce effectively utilizes the stylistic device as he explores Farquhar’s mind with his readers. He writes, "If I could free my hands… 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.” (Bierce 2). He goes on to say, “my home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my wife and little ones are still beyond the invader's farthest advance" (Bierce 2). These thoughts came to Farquhar when he remembered his wife and children. He saw a glimpse of hope and he wanted to take his chances. He had a clear plan of Surname 3 escaping the menacing fangs of death. The only problem is that he was executing the ideas only in his mind and not in reality. Nevertheless, it was a sign of his uneasiness with the imminent death, a decision resting in the hands of his enemies. Bierce uses soliloquy again when he asserts, “To be hanged and drowned… that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair” (3). Despite being in a different dimension from the reality, Farquhar is trying his best to survive the horrifying experience. He is determined that he will escape the grasp of his executioners, and he cannot let them harm him any more than they have already done. In fact, he has already reconciled with their prior acts of hanging and drowning him. However, he has set a limit of the inflictions he is to endure, and being shot is not among them. Here, Bierce has already jumbled up the actual reality with the perceived reality. The audience is certain that the occurring events are real, and the use of soliloquy enforces this belief. Therefore, the author uses Farquhar thoughts as a way of making the reader believe in the prevailing events. The story written by Ambrose Bierce is both brilliant and unique. The author’s extraordinary skill set enables him to create a vivid and intriguing tale, which utilizes time and reality to impress the reader. Despite being creative, Bierce adheres to the important guidelines of every great fiction and poetry work by incorporating literally devices effectively. He uses imagery to paint vivid images for the audience and intertwines the element with soliloquy to write a masterpiece. These and other elements remain key to the work since they give it meaning, and they grant the audience the chance to experience the author’s intent effectively. Surname 4 Works Cited Bierce, Ambrose. An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Online resource. Retrieved from http://compositionawebb.pbworks.com/f/owl.pdf Davis, James. Dialogue, Monologue and Soliloquy in the Large Lecture Class. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. 2007. Volume 19, Number 2, 178-182. Online resource. Retrieved from http://www.isetl.org/ijtlhe/pdf/IJTLHE195.pdf Kao, Justine and Jurafsky, Dan. A Computational Analysis of Style, Affect, and Imagery in Contemporary Poetry. Stanford University. Online resource. Retrieved from https://nlp.stanford.edu/pubs/kaojurafsky12.pdf 
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