In Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

Words: 973
Pages: 4

According to Clarence Darrow, an American lawyer during the Civil War, “upright, honorable boys” enlisted “in this war and learned to place a cheap value on human life.” Set during the Civil War, Ambrose Bierce’s short story, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” shares a similar sentiment about the stark contrast between the desensitized soldiers, and the upright civilians who still value human life. The short story’s plot follows Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate supporter, while the Union military force is about to hang him on Owl Creek Bridge– without trial– for attempting arson against the Union, although, Farquhar seemingly escapes his demise and travels back to his house. Yet, just as Farquhar is about to reunite with his wife, the narrator reveals that Farquhar hallucinated his exaggerated escape in the paucity of time it took for the noose to kill him. In his short story, Bierce uses characterization, through hyperbole and diction, and a couples it with irony in order to distinguish a discrete separation between the compassion of civilians, and the military-induced dehumanization of soldiers.
Through Bierce’s use of hyperbole and diction, the author affords characterization in order to portray the juxtaposition between the desensitization of soldiers, and the warmth of civilians. When the soldiers shoot at Farquhar
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By carefully selecting these literary techniques, Bierce reveals the irony in war and contrasts lively, compassionate civilians with mechanized militants in order to display his view that the military teaches them to “place a cheap value on human life.” In this way, Bierce juxtaposes the two in an effort to provide luminous insight that the dehumanization of the soldiers is learned