“A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below....”
Ambrose Bierce3,800 wordsAdvanced
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer, stands on the Owl Creek bridge about to be hanged by Union soldiers. A flashback reveals he was tricked by a disguised Federal scout into attempting to burn the bridge. At the moment of execution, Farquhar appears to escape: the rope breaks, he plunges into the creek, evades gunfire, and treks through the wilderness toward home. Just as he reaches his wife, the narrative reveals the entire escape was a dying hallucination — Farquhar hangs dead from the bridge, his neck broken.
Literary FictionPsychological FictionUnreliable NarratorStream of Consciousness
