Plot and Structure: An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

The short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce has many descriptive details and an interesting plot that sets the story off. All of how the plot is built up and created is by exposition rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. In the story, the exposition begins by a captain and sergeants as well as their other men are at a bridge getting ready to execute a civilian named Peyton Farquhar. Then to follow afterwards is the rising action which the narrator of the story describes how Peyton felt as he stood on the plank waiting, describing his thoughts. Next to follow is the climax, where in the story the reader comes to find out later he is dreaming but in his dream or thought he thinks that when he drops to be hung and executed that the rope breaks and he falls into the stream below, floating away from the armed men, barely alive. So he has escaped and goes on a journey through the forest to find his home and family. In that mere thought, Peyton imagined getting to safety, a thought he wished to happen. After the built up climax, is the falling action; which in the story the narrator proceeds to explain how Peyton describes walking through the woods to find a sense of direction back home “uncanny”. As he walks and describes the pain in his neck, the numbness of his feet, and the thirst of his mouth. How he walks so long that he is sleep walking, and before he knows it, he ends up at the gate of his home. Unfortunately, Peyton is only imagining when he ends up at his house, with his wife at the steps to greet him. In the end, the resolution falls to be that he has this exaggerated thought all in a split second while he is standing on the plank getting ready to plunge to his death. Peyton Farquhar is dead and all the deep descriptions simply feelings inside him; his imagination before his death.