Blog: An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

I am just going to start by saying that I think I had a general idea of what the story was about, as well as how realism affected how Bierce wrote. However, I do not know if my assumption of the idea we are supposed to be getting from this story is correct, but this is what I got out of this story. A man is about to be hung, so Bierce goes into great detail of the atmosphere around him as well as what is going on in regards to how the noose fits on the man, and what the man is actually thinking. However, then Bierce starts talking as if the man, Peyton Fahrquhar, is still living and not being hung. As the reader eventually finds out, though, Peyton does not live, but has been hallucinating right until his neck breaks, and he dies (Bierce). Realism according to Dictionary.com is defined as: a manner of treating subject matter that presents a careful description of everyday life, usually of the lower and middle classes; a theory of writing in which the ordinary, familiar, or mundane aspects of life are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner that is presumed to reflect life as it actually is (Realism).

That definition is really common sense, because realism is just basically talking about events that occur in real life, and going into great detail about them. While reading this story I was struck at how similar to Edgar Allen Poe it sounded. Just because Bierce goes into great detail about everything and the topic is one of death, which Poe tended to write about.

"The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good -- a straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar of his well fitting frock coat. He wore a moustache and pointed beard, but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded" (Bierce). This passage is an example of the realism because Bierce is explaining how ordinary the man is seeming to be and that he is of middle class, a class that realism seems to focus on. However, this story in general also demonstrates realism because Bierce is telling of something that could have possibly happened in that time; a man is hung for not following the military code. In today's time, that is not the case for breaking the law, so we would not consider it modern realism. But to people living in Bierce's time, being hung for breaking the law was what happened, so it is considered realism.

Works Cited:

Bierce, Ambrose. "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge." Page By Page Books. Web. http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Ambrose_Bierce/An_Occurrence_At_Owl_Creek_Bridge/index.html.

"realism." Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 18 Jan. 2011. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/realism>.