Journal 5: Ambrose Bierce

Michelle Romero
Eng. 48B
Dr. Scott Lankford

"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce

"In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference."

"The liberal military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons, and gentlemen are not excluded."

"The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple and effective."


Describing the scene in a disenchanted, ordinary way, the speaker depicts the ceremonious hanging of a condemned man at the Owl Creek Bridge. The tone of the speaker gives the military a detached, cold, android-like identity to the reader who is more inclined to sympathize with the "gentlemen" facing death. Words like "simple and effective," or "provision for hanging" suggest such astonishing regularity for such an unfortunate occurrence.

The mundane tone of Bierce's entrance to this story is disturbing. A reader may easily skip over the very real elements of this story while waiting to be grabbed. The tone of the story does not change much except when the condemned man is fanaticizing of his escape as he struggles with his last breaths. Then and only then does the detailed descriptions of Farquhar's experiences stir any emotion within the reader. The very real narrative causes both the reader to lose a large part of the story and also to step back at the descriptive elements and say "what the hell just happened?!"

As a reader, this read is not very enjoyable as the tone seems to cause the story to drag on. However, after reading Bierce's biography and understanding more about his cynical views of life and therefore, the cynical views which seep into his writing, the text achieves meaning. After attending a military school and serving as a volunteer in the U.S. Civil War, I believe his own experiences contributed to his ability to narrate Farquhar's accounts of death so intricately.

Most interesting is his desensitization of the military and of death, which is expressed in his tone. All the formalities of each member's position and "motionless" stance contribute to this effect. Death is but mere words, the words given by the sergeant. Each piece of the story is preserved in a most real form, from the thoughts and feelings of the dying man to the steps of the firing rifles; no detail is left behind. I imagine much like this illustration, the soldiers of the Civil War experienced desensitization as they encountered death routinely in their day to day efforts.

Bierce is almost revealing these effects of combat by writing in the tone he does. The reader basically experiences the same unmoving, unfeeling response to what he or she is reading even though the words telling us what is happening should be cause for some sort of awakening...
Maybe this is just the way humans have learned to survive, by staying silent and trading formalities for real emotion.

(Then again, another quote says, "In the code of military etiquette silence and fixity are forms of deference." As is, the word deference translates to respect, however, when I see this word, my mind cannot help but go to the word defer, which means to put off. If interpreted this way would suggest that silence and fixity are merely temporary resolutions to a long term confrontation.)