Farquhar In An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge

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Most would say their family or their loved ones would be the last thing they think about before they die, but not Peyton Farquhar in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce. Farquhar’s last few thoughts consisted of making a miraculous escape from his hanging by slipping down into the river to swim to safety and hike his way back home where his family is. Unfortunately these thoughts are just mere thoughts, and Farquhar dies by hanging, even though the author describes his imaginary escape as a reality. The author foreshadows that Farquhar is dead by including preternatural imagery and allusions to show his inevitable death.
For instance, a very strong form of foreshadowing begins to come into effect instantaneously after Farquhar feels the bridge fall from under his feet. As soon as he falls, Bierce describes his sensations as, “Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum” (Bierce 470-471). This imagery foreshadows that Farquhar is dead because it …show more content…
Once he imagines that he escapes from the firing squad and swims to solid land, he imagines that he sees, “A strange roseate light shone through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their branches the music of Aeolian harps” (Bierce 472-473). This allusion is important to the foreshadowing of Farquhar’s death because of the specific instrument that the wind sounded like, an aeolian harp. An aeolian harp is a stringed instrument that is played in the wind by Greek Gods. This is specific to Farquhar's death because it would make no sense to be hearing the God’s music if he were not in the presence of them, and the only way for a mortal to be with a God is for them to be dead. The author includes this quite obvious allusion to foreshadow Farquhar’s inescapable
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