An Occurrence at Owl Creek

From reading the beginning of this story I was reading the biography page of Ambrose Bierce who was the author of this story. The first sentence says, "Ambrose Bierce did not trust people. Nor did he trust governments, businesses, or churches" (Bierce 387). This sentence is a lot different from the thoughts or beliefs of Thoreau. It is different from the writings of Thoreau because Thoreau did not like the government that they were having. He wanted to change it and not totally take it away and as you can see from Bierce he did not trust the governments. Also coming from the first sentence of this quote was that Bierce did not trust people (Bierce 387). This is also a lot different from the beliefs of Emerson. Emerson believed in people relying on each other and they form there own world. As you can tell, Bierce was not a fan of some people. Ambrose Bierce was also called "Bitter Bierce" (Bierce 387) which was probably why he was called this because from the first sentence of this paragraph it seems like Bierce did not like anything in the world which is why he was called "Bitter Bierce". I found it funny to read his biography because of just the way he seemed to act.

I found this story sad but interesting at the same time. This story had some slavery in it and it goes against Emerson and Thoreau's beliefs again because they did not like slavery and this story had to do with slavery in the South. Peyton Farquhar is a plantation owner in the South in this story. While sitting on a bench a soldier comes up to him and says that there is an attack coming and they need to do something about it. He comes up with the idea that they need to blow up the bridge in order to buy a little time for them. So he agrees with the soldier to help him out and when they are about to blow up the bridge they get caught. In the story it said "any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily hanged" (Bierce 392). Peyton died at the end and I found this story interesting but sad.

Bibliography

Bierce, Ambrose. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 387-396. Print.