An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

For the film, see An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (film). For the American Dad! episode, see An Incident at Owl Creek.
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
Author Ambrose Bierce
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) short story
Published in Tales of Soldiers and Civilians
Publication date 1890

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" or "A Dead Man's Dream" is a short story by American author Ambrose Bierce. Originally published by The San Francisco Examiner on July 13, 1890, it was first collected in Bierce's 1891 book Tales of Soldiers and Civilians. The story, which is set during the Civil War, is famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending. Bierce's abandonment of strict linear narration in favor of the internal mind of the protagonist is considered an early example of experimentation with stream of consciousness.[1] It is Bierce's most anthologized story.[2]

Plot summary

Peyton Farquhar, a plantation owner in his mid-thirties, is being prepared for execution by hanging from an Alabama railroad bridge during the American Civil War. Six military men and a company of infantrymen are present, guarding the bridge and carrying out the sentence. Farquhar thinks of his wife and children and is then distracted by a noise that, to him, sounds like an unbearably loud clanging; it is actually the ticking of his watch. He considers the possibility of jumping off the bridge and swimming to safety if he can free his tied hands, but the soldiers drop him from the bridge before he can act on the idea.

In a flashback, Farquhar and his wife are relaxing at home one evening when a soldier rides up to the gate. Farquhar, a supporter of the Confederacy, learns from him that Union troops have seized the Owl Creek railroad bridge and repaired it. The soldier suggests that Farquhar might be able to burn the bridge down if he can slip past its guards. He then leaves, but doubles back after nightfall to return north the way he came. The soldier is actually a disguised Union scout who has lured Farquhar into a trap, as any civilian caught interfering with the railroads will be hanged.

The story returns to the present, and the rope around Farquhar's neck breaks when he falls from the bridge into the creek. He frees his hands, pulls the noose away, and surfaces to begin his escape. His senses now greatly sharpened, he dives and swims downstream to avoid rifle and cannon fire. Once he is out of range, he leaves the creek to begin the journey to his home, 30 miles away. Farquhar walks all day long through a seemingly endless forest, and that night he begins to hallucinate, seeing strange constellations and hearing whispered voices in an unknown language. He travels on, urged by the thought of his wife and children despite the pains caused by his ordeal. The next morning, after having apparently fallen asleep while walking, he finds himself at the gate to his plantation. He rushes to embrace his wife, but before he can do so, he feels a heavy blow upon the back of his neck; there is a loud noise and a flash of white, and everything goes black.

It is revealed that Farquhar never escaped at all; he imagined the entire third part of the story during the time between falling through the bridge and the noose breaking his neck.

Stories with similar structure

The plot device of a long period of subjective time passing in an instant, such as the imagined experiences of Farquhar while falling, has been explored by several authors.[3] An early literary antecedent appears in the Tang dynasty tale, The Governor of Nanke, by Li Gongzuo. Another medieval antecedent is Don Juan Manuel's Tales of Count Lucanor, Chapter XII (c 1335), "Of that which happened to a Dean of Santiago, with Don Illan, the Magician, who lived at Toledo", in which a life happens in an instant.[4][5] Charles Dickens' essay "A Visit to Newgate" wherein a man dreams he has escaped his death sentence has been speculated as a possible source for the story.[6]

Bierce's story highlighted the idea of subjective time passing at the moment of death and popularized the fictional device of false narrative continuation, which has been in wide circulation ever since then. Notable examples of this technique from the first part of the 20th century include H.G. Wells's "The Door in the Wall" (1906) and "The Beautiful Suit" (1909), Vladimir Nabokov's "Details of a Sunset" (1924) and "The Aurelian" (1930), Jorge Luis Borges's "The Secret Miracle" (1944) and "The South" (1949), as well as Cortazar's "The Island at Midday" and Perutz's "From Nine to Nine".

Among more recent works, David Lynch's later films have been sometimes compared to "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", although they also have been interpreted as the Möbius strip storylines.[7][8] A particularly strong inspiration for the 1990 film Jacob's Ladder, for both Bruce Joel Rubin and Adrian Lyne, was Robert Enrico's 1962 short film An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,[9] one of Lyne's favourite movies.[10] Tobias Wolff's short story "Bullet in the Brain" (1995) reveals the protagonist's past through relating what he remembers—and does not—in the millisecond after he is fatally shot.

Adaptations

Several adaptations of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" have been produced.

Influence

Notes

  1. Khanom, Afruza. "Silence as Literary Device in Ambrose Bierce's 'The Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.' Teaching American Literature: A Journal of Theory and Practice. Spring 6.1 (2013): 45–52. Print.
  2. Blume (2004), p. 211
  3. Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge": an annotated critical edition. Robert C. Evans ed. 2003, Locust Hill Press, West Cornwall, CT. ISBN 0-9722289-6-9.
  4. Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena, Tales of Count Lucanor, http://archive.org/stream/countlucanororfi00juaniala/countlucanororfi00juaniala_djvu.txt
  5. This story was rewritten by Jorge Luis Borges in "The Wizard Postponed", in his book A Universal History of Infamy (1935).
  6. Tabachnick, Stephen. "A Possible Source for Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owlcreek Bridge." ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews.26.1 (2013): 45–48. Print.
  7. http://www.rochester.edu/in_visible_culture/Issue_8/thain.html#20
  8. http://metaphilm.com/index.php/detail/reading-inland-empire/
  9. Bruce Joel Rubin, Jacob's Ladder, Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 1990
  10. Hartl, John (1990-11-01). "Adrian Lyne Met A Metaphysical Challenge". The Seattle Times. Retrieved 2010-02-06.
  11. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1962)". NY Times. Retrieved 2010-01-09.
  12. http://www.escape-suspense.com/2008/04/escape---an-occ.html
  13. http://www.ambrosebierce.org/journal1hand.html
  14. http://www.twilightzoneradio.com/template/store.cfm/ses_/details.cfm,list,x,0,0,5015-9,x,x,x
  15. "The Exit Room". Retrieved 2014-05-04.
  16. http://www.escape-suspense.com/2008/05/escape---presen.html
  17. "Why I Call Myself Owl City". Adam Young Blog. Retrieved 2015-12-16.
  18. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZI9hJ2BZYg&t=3480
  19. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ddd70PMxTE

References

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Tuesday, March 29, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.