Who are the characters in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge?

Character List

• Peyton Farquhar. A thirty-five-year-old Southern planter.
• Farquhar’s Wife. A dutiful woman who serves as an emblem of the comfort and domestic security Farquhar seeks.
• The Northern Scout. A man disguised as a Confederate soldier.
• The Sergeant. A Confederate officer.

What are Farquhar’s major character traits?

Unprepared and foolish, Farquhar allows his desire for renown to lead him right into his captors’ hands. He has placed his own motives ahead of his responsibility to his family. Farquhar exhibits a damning gap between his true character and inflated perception of his abilities and role in the world.

Who is Bierce in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge?

Bierce was himself a Civil War veteran (he was almost fifty when he wrote ‘An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge’), and he was doubtless familiar with many other narratives which sought to glorify or romanticise war.

Why was Peyton Farquhar hanged in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce?

Farquhar is hanged because he was caught attempting to destroy a bridge that Union soldiers needed for transport.

Who was Farquhar?

Major-General William Farquhar (/ˈfɑːkər/ FAH-kər; 26 February 1774 – 11 May 1839) was a Scottish colonial administrator employed by the East India Company, who served as the sixth Resident of Malacca and the first Resident of Singapore….William Farquhar.

Is Farquhar the protagonist?

Farquhar is the protagonist of the story, and indeed most of the pertinent action involves him and him alone. He’s the only character given a formal name (not even his wife gets such a courtesy), and Bierce spends a great deal of time on his physical description.

Is Farquhar a hero?

Hero or villain, Farquhar is certainly a confident – nay, naively arrogant – dude. He calls himself a “student of hanging,” seeming to imply that he thinks he can commit the crime and still avoid the punishment. Even once he has a noose around his neck, he thinks he can control whether he lives or dies.

How did Farquhar escape?

Peyton Farquhar persuaded himself that he had escaped the hanging by jumping in the water although he never really enters the water. Bierce illustrates Farquhar’s fantasy of escaping by the imagination of Farquhar dodging bullets fired by the captain and the soldier who are responsible for his death.

Who was the gray clad soldier?

In this sense, the color gray indicates a distortion of the truth—the soldier is actually a Northern scout disguised in the enemy’s colors. When Farquhar begins his fantasized escape, he operates under a gloomy gray sky.

How long did Farquhar’s escape actually take?

When he describes the reality of the situation, the author, like a magician, misleads the reader until the end. According to Farquhar’s perception of time, how long does it take him to get home and escape ( see paragraphs 33 and 36)? It took Farquhar the whole day, the entire night, and on into the next morning.

How does Ambrose Bierce view war?

By Ambrose Bierce Not surprisingly, Bierce doesn’t come off as a huge fan of war. In all of his stories, war is defined by violence, death, and suffering. Though Peyton Farquhar is not a soldier, he too is a casualty of war.