40 Fun Facts About An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

What does the final paragraph of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' reveal about Peyton Farquhar's escape?

It happened only in his mind: the whole flight home passes in the instant between the drop and the noose snapping his neck. Bierce holds that back for one blunt closing sentence.

In 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', what is the slow metallic pounding that torments Farquhar before the drop?

The ticking of his watch swells until each stroke hurts like the thrust of a knife. Like the driftwood that seems to crawl downstream, it shows Farquhar's sense of time stretching as the end nears.

The soldier who tells Farquhar about Owl Creek Bridge rides back north after dark because he is secretly what?

A Federal scout in enemy uniform, he has baited Farquhar into a trap. A posted order already promises death to anyone caught tampering with the line.

Which American anthology series aired the French film of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' as an episode in 1964?

The Twilight Zone aired the finished French film instead of shooting its own version. Host Rod Serling opened by telling viewers it had been made overseas by others.

Ambrose Bierce, author of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', vanished after traveling in 1913 to which country?

Mexico was in the middle of a revolution, and Bierce, aged 71, reportedly joined Pancho Villa's army as an observer before he vanished. His fate has never been established.

Which lexicon by 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' author Ambrose Bierce first reached book form under a tamer title?

The Devil's Dictionary first came out as a book in 1906, titled The Cynic's Word Book. Its barbed entries had started out as occasional items in Bierce's newspaper columns.

'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' is set in the north of which state, though the real creek lies elsewhere?

Alabama gives the story its bridge, but the real Owl Creek runs through Tennessee. Bierce likely moved it because the actual bridge had no railroad nearby.

In 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', what does the visiting soldier hint that Farquhar could do to the bridge?

Burn it down, the soldier implies: a winter flood has piled driftwood against the wooden pier, and it is now dry as tinder. He says he saw it himself a month earlier.

Which sitcom nodded to 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' with an episode titled 'My Occurrence'?

Scrubs reworked Bierce's title for a first-season episode in which Brendan Fraser guest stars as Ben, a patient whose blood test brings bad news.

Peyton Farquhar, the condemned man of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', makes his living as a well-to-do what?

Planter and slave owner, Farquhar is an ardent secessionist kept out of the army by circumstances Bierce pointedly declines to explain. He longs for the larger life of a soldier and a chance at distinction.

On Owl Creek Bridge, what seems to break once the sergeant steps aside, dropping Farquhar into the creek below?

The rope appears to snap, and the noose that was choking him even keeps the creek out of his lungs. Farquhar finds the idea of drowning mid-execution almost funny.

On Owl Creek Bridge, Peyton Farquhar closes his eyes to fix his last thoughts on whom?

His wife and children are safe beyond the enemy's lines, he reassures himself, but the gold-lit creek, the fort and the soldiers keep pulling his attention away.

In 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', what does the dusty horseman request when he stops at Farquhar's gate?

A drink of water is all he asks, and Mrs. Farquhar fetches it herself. While she is gone, her husband presses the stranger for news from the front.

Besides the soldiers' rifles, what else shoots at Peyton Farquhar as he is swept down Owl Creek?

A cannon in the fort lobs a ball that lands within two yards of him and drenches him. Farquhar coolly judges it a good gun and expects grapeshot next.

In 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', Farquhar jokes to the visiting soldier that he is a student of what?

Hanging is exactly the fate the posted order promises, and Farquhar says it with a smile. The grim joke comes true thirty miles away at the creek.

In 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', Farquhar recalls that all famous marksmen have eyes of which color?

Gray eyes were said to be the keenest, Farquhar remembers reading, as a sentinel with just such an eye sights down a rifle at him. The man misses anyway.

When Peyton Farquhar is flung ashore below Owl Creek Bridge, the sand he throws over himself looks to him like what?

Precious gems, in his eyes: the sand looks like diamonds, rubies and emeralds, and he weeps with delight. Even the trees look to him like a garden laid out in order.

Walking home at night from Owl Creek Bridge, what does Peyton Farquhar see overhead that strikes him as sinister?

Strange constellations of great golden stars shine over the road, and he feels sure their pattern has a secret, malign meaning. Whispers in an unknown tongue come from the woods.

On Owl Creek Bridge, what rank is the officer whose nod tells the sergeant to step off Farquhar's plank?

Captain is his rank, and he stands silent with folded arms while his men work. His own weight held the plank in place until the sergeant took over.

At what time of day do the soldiers on Owl Creek Bridge carry out Peyton Farquhar's execution?

Early in the morning, with the creek touched to gold by the low sun and mist still brooding under the banks. The beauty of the scene keeps distracting the condemned man.

In 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', Farquhar envies the army whose campaigns ended with the fall of which town?

Corinth, Mississippi, fell to Northern troops in May 1862 after a month-long siege, which places Farquhar's story in the months that followed.

The middle section of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' uses which device to show how Farquhar came to be condemned?

A flashback cuts in at the very instant the sergeant steps aside, leaving Farquhar in mid-air while Bierce goes back to an evening at his home. The drop resumes a section later.

In 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', Peyton Farquhar accepts at least part of which 'frankly villainous' saying?

All's fair in love and war is the dictum, and it explains his eagerness: no service was too humble and no adventure too perilous for a civilian who was a soldier at heart.

Explaining the soldiers' stillness on Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce's narrator personifies Death as what?

A dignitary, Bierce writes, who is to be received with formal shows of respect when he comes announced. In the military code, silence and fixity are forms of deference.

As Peyton Farquhar reaches his own gate in 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', the narration makes which sudden shift?

Past tense to present tense: he sees, he stands, he springs forward. The switch makes the homecoming feel immediate, and the closing sentence snaps back to the past.

Ambrose Bierce, author of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', wrote a memoir about surviving which 1862 battle?

Shiloh, fought in April 1862, was a terrifying experience that fed several of his stories as well as the memoir. Bierce served there with the 9th Indiana Infantry.

'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' first ran in 1890 in a newspaper owned by which press baron, Bierce's employer?

William Randolph Hearst made Bierce one of the Examiner's first regular columnists, and Bierce stayed with Hearst papers until 1909.

'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' made its debut in July 1890 in a daily newspaper published in which city?

San Francisco was Bierce's base for decades, and the story ran in the city's Examiner on July 13, 1890. He wrote his best-known stories in a rapid burst between 1888 and 1891.

Which 1891 collection was the first book to include Ambrose Bierce's 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'?

Tales of Soldiers and Civilians was refused by the country's chief publishing houses, Bierce complained in its preface. He credited a merchant friend with getting it into print.

Which novelist wrote in 2005 that 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' is the greatest American short story?

Kurt Vonnegut added that anyone who had not read it was a twerp. He ranked the story with Duke Ellington's music and the Franklin stove as a pure piece of American genius.

'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' abandons strict linear narration in an early example of which narrative mode?

Stream of consciousness was not fully developed until modernists such as James Joyce took it up in the 20th century. Bierce was trying it in a newspaper story in 1890.

Which Ernest Hemingway story about a dying writer may have been influenced by 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'?

The Snows of Kilimanjaro is one suggested descendant, and William Golding's novel Pincher Martin is another. Bierce's war fiction is counted among Hemingway's influences.

Ambrose Bierce, author of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge', suffered a serious head wound at which 1864 battle?

Kennesaw Mountain left him with a brain injury blamed for later episodes of fainting and irritability. Its lingering effects led him to resign his commission in January 1865.

Which French director made La Rivière du hibou, the acclaimed film of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'?

Robert Enrico also filmed two more Bierce stories, 'Chickamauga' and 'The Mocking-Bird', and released all three together as a feature titled In the Midst of Life.

The French screen version of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' won an Academy Award in which category?

Live Action Short Film was its Oscar. Jazz drummer Kenny Clarke plays the drum solo that accompanies Farquhar's flight through the forest.

The French film of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' took a top prize in 1962 at which European film festival?

Cannes honored it in 1962, with Roger Jacquet in the role of Farquhar. Half a century later the Academy Film Archive preserved the film.

Which future film star played the sergeant in a 1959 TV version of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'?

James Coburn played the sergeant opposite British actor Ronald Howard's Farquhar. Unlike Bierce's story, that version ends with an order to cut the body down.

Which 1990 psychological horror film was strongly inspired by the French film of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'?

Jacob's Ladder director Adrian Lyne counted the French adaptation among his favorite films, and writer Bruce Joel Rubin drew on it too. Tim Robbins stars as a haunted Vietnam veteran.

Which Hollywood actor directed Babybird's 2010 music video 'Unloveable', a retelling of the Owl Creek Bridge story?

Johnny Depp, a long-term fan of the band, also made a cameo appearance on the track itself, which comes from the album Ex-Maniac.

Which Hungarian-born director made The Bridge, a 1929 silent film of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge'?

Charles Vidor shot the low-budget film in his spare time with his own money, and it earned him a contract at Universal. He was no relation to fellow director King Vidor.