Could Death Be Just a Dream...an Analysis of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"

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Could Death Be Just A Dream… An Analysis of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” The short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” written by Ambrose Bierce is a work of fiction due to the fact it is a narrative short story that deals with an event and characters that are not real but rather born in the imagination of Bierce. It is a story whose characters, plot, and surprise ending came from the experiences of war that Bierce learned by living them. In this work Bierce pushes the reader to expand their mind in an attempt to take a deeper look into the human experience. This work falls into place in the Realism movement of American literature. Its characters and plot stand out and seem to render a realistic tale that has a distinct air of verisimilitude in its content. The treatment of the scene, era of history, and the attention paid to making the common characters come to life are all important factors of realism. The critical theory that will be examined in this work will be the Psychoanalytical Criticism theory. Peyton Farquhar, the main character in this story, is a sad figure of a man who escapes the reality of his situation by slipping into a Freudian wish fulfillment dream state (Morrone, 2013). The expert use of profound imagery and description by Bierce in this work produces an elegant tale that tempts the reader’s mind to explore the emotionally charged imaginative effects that are part of our basic human nature and while the Civil War was at the very essence of some of his most acclaimed work, the reader and critic of his work would most probably ponder just how his personal experiences in the war affected him when reading his stories. The story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is divided into three sections that all trigger in the readers mind a sense of reality and veracity bringing into
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