Realism in An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge

Realism is defined as Born out of the ideas of the romantic novel but infused with concrete details and accurate descriptions of society, the characters of realist fiction are drawn from the events and contexts of modern life and face everyday obstacles (Diamond.) In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge realism is the main literary genre of the story and it’s characteristics are prevalent throughout the story.
Several characteristics of the novel demonstrate it’s realistic influence and draw. The characteristics the primarily demonstrate it’s realism are it’s setting, it’s characters, and the conflict the protagonist encounters in his time during the novel.
The main character Fahrquhar is a southern sympathizer during the Civil War who is attempting to help the Confederacy by burning down a railroad bridge at Owl Creek. The south constantly fought with Guerrilla warfare against their more powerful Northern opponents. The nationalism in the South was rampant and southern farmers were fighting for their right to slavery and their land, as well as their right to be their own nation so it was a much more urgent war for them. Due to this they were constantly using covert tactics to sabotage Northern efforts in the war. In this line from the story by Bierce Fahrquhar hatches his plan to sabotage the bridge to assist union troops as evidenced by these lines from the story, “How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?" Fahrquhar asked. “About thirty miles." "Is there no force on this side of the creek?" "Only a picket post half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single sentinel at this end of the bridge." "Suppose a man -- a civilian and student of hanging -- should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Fahrquhar, smiling, "what could he accomplish?" The soldier reflected. "I was there a month ago," he replied. "I observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now dry and would burn like tinder." In this small excerpt the reader sees Fahrquhar begin to probe for evidence of the bridge so he may destroy it.
This goal of Fahrquhar reveals his loyal and devoted character and gives him validity as a real person, as the author gives him real characteristics that flesh out his character. His issues and dilemmas are human and relevant to the time period because he is trying to assist his nation and help the greater good in his eyes. This type of quality is very human and exposes the realistic nature of the character which in turn provides realism for the story bunching it in with other romantic stories of the time.
The issues dealt with, the setting, and the character of Fahrquhar in the short story all lend themselves to the stories realistic nature and group it into the realism group due to it's similar qualities to other realistic works and the definition of realism.






Diamond, Marie Josephine, ed. "realism." Encyclopedia of World Writers, 19th and 20th Centuries. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2003. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&SID=5&iPin= GEWW480&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 18, 2011).

Bierce, Ambrose. "An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce; I Page 1." Page By Page Books. Read Classic Books Online, Free. Web. 18 Jan. 2011. .

Journal #: 32

My memoirs would be quite the epic tale if I wrote it. Here is an excerpt of my time over the 2010 Winter break from my high school. One day as I was sitting in my study I viewed a raven fly into my study and perch itself on a bust of Athena, so I shot it with my hunting shotgun and had raven stew that night. Afterwards I retired to my room and played some Diablo II or something. After this I experienced some emotional growth after my hardcore character died and I was just heartbroken or something that affect. After this I began donating my money to charities for children who lost their characters on Diablo II. This experience really documented growth in myself emotionally and psychological. I helped millions of children around the world who were killed because of that jerk Summoner in the Arcane Sanctuary, Duriel, Mephisto, and others (except those who got killed by Andariel because if she kills you then you are a failure at Diablo and shouldn't be playing in the first place.) So after saving millions of kids lives I went back and played more Diablo got to about Act IV with my barbarian and then just stopped playing because Act IV scares the living bejeezus out of me. Playing it alone is a bad idea but I was playing with Drew so it was all cool. After all of this occurred I ended yet another successful day in my life because let's face it, I'm probably one of the most awesomest people you will ever meet in your entire life. But yeah anyway charity and philanthropy is good and this is the memoir of Dylan ******** and that would be that for tonight me compadres. Except I still have a few sentences to write so I gotta keep doing this for another few words or so and then I should be good. So...anybody seen any good movies lately? You should all go see True Grit right now.

Journal # 31: Daydream

Ok, well a daydream I had that helped me get out of a sticky situation was when I daydreamed that I was fighting this really epic dragon with red scales and it could breath molten fire, but being awesome I was immune to the dragons totally rad powers and defeated it with my sweet skills of the nunchucks. Obviously this was all an analogy for something that would help me out later but it didn't matter because I was having the time of my life fighting that dragon. I did a totally awesome triple quadruple flip over the dragon and knocked it out and killed it with my awesome nunchuck skills. Obviously this was a metaphor for my attempts to cure cancer through awesomeness. After the dream I realized how to cure cancer using the dragon as a metaphor for the disease and the nunchucks being a metaphor for my awesome motorcycle skills. Using this amazing skill I was able to cure cancer and AIDS while I was at it, finally getting a billion dollars for my scientific endeavors. Oh man I am freaking awesome. So after doing that I ended world hunger and had a dream about fighting a group of yetis, obviously a metaphor for the tyrannical communistic dictatorship of Kim Yong Ill II in North Korea. Launching a full scale invasion of the nation all on my lonesome I was able to take down the terrible dictator installing my own tyrannical rule on the area in his place. After this I solved everything that was wrong in the world and went on to be known as the most awesome person in the entire history of all of mankind because it's true. I then flew to Mars and colonized the planet and rules the entire galaxy shortly after that...then again this could be like Inception and it turns out that this entire story was a daydream. Cue Twilight Zone music! And that is that.

Journal #30: School Uniforms

School uniforms would be an awful idea for Pleasant Plains High School. School uniforms are usually only required at private schools where they attempt to take your individuality and crush it into tiny little pieces then take those tiny little pieces and crush them into little molecules and take those little molecules and crush them up into little protons and neutrons and electrons, and finally take those and smash them up into tiny little quarks. So yeah uniforms are bad because they cause conformity and strip students of their individuality causing them to lose their full capability of doing whatever it is they are doing. I would bet money that at Private schools where kids are forced to wear uniforms for their daily lives had lower test scores than kids who are allowed to dress however they want when they attend school. School uniforms cause children to act similar to all of their other peers and lose their capability of individual thought and they aren't able to perform as well as those children who are not forced to wear uniforms at their school. You also have the issue of cost for families who are not as wealthy as their peers. For some families it would be difficult for them to buy several sets of uniforms as well as their clothes for after school so cost would be an issue for families when it comes to uniforms being required for schooling. My final point is just what is the reason behind uniforms? I don't get them they just don't make sense. It confuses me that you would want all these kids just walking around in the same exact clothes instead of clothing that really reveals their personality or cool little things that you would not be able to find out about them when they are wearing just your boring and bland school uniform that makes them look just like everyone else. Those are my thoughts on uniforms.

Journal # 29: Year Zero

Alright I'm here to tell YOU about my personal favorite album, an album by the name Year Zero by one of my favorite artists who is miles better than any crappy band known as the Millionaires. He is known as Trent Reznor, and more popularly known as Nine Inch Nails, or NIN. Year Zero is his 5th album which was much more experimental than his previous material. It is categorized as an Industrial Metal album, but in my opinion Year Zero is much more similar to an electronic type of music known as Glitch. Starting off with an instrumental track called Hyperpower we're given a great intro to the album with booming drums and an eerie backdrop. Next we have The Beginning is the End which is an awesome track altogether and we see the shift towards erratic elctro music. Next we have Survivalism and The Good Soldier which kind of reveals the story behind the album (It's a concept album.) We get a few more songs in and all of them are very different, but similar in lyrical theme and basic music behind them until we get to the last two songs, In This Twilight and Zero-Sum which are slower and are used to basically summarize the entire album up. Actually they are in the process of making an HBO series based on the album's storyline, and it is a very interesting storyline. The entire album came out with this ARG, Alternate Reality Game, that helped to reveal the story behind the album, and it's really quite the mindbending story if I do say so myself. It's hard to explain but if you are into Sci-Fi story's and are a fan of Reznor's past material I would highly recommend it. The coolest thing is that he was able to make an kind of elctro album without ostracizing his Industrial fans who have been with him since the very beginning. Year Zero. Go buy it.

Journal # 28 - Convincing

Persuasion is an art. I like to think I am as good at persuasion as Obi Wan was in Star Wars Episode IV. As a great Jedi once said, "these are not the droids you're looking for." Those star troopers believed him and they went on their way and it was awesome. I wish I could use the force to persuade people, but I digress I am still good at convincing people. I once convinced a man a dieing man whose only hope to survive was his coat, to give me his coat because I was kind of chilly and my arm was cold. I also once convinced a man to buy me a sandwich with money out of his own pocket because in 20 years he would get that money back 1 trillion fold, which is not going to happen, but at least he believed me and I got my sandwich. Anyway yeah convincing people is not that hard because I am one charismatic guy. I would say I am about as charismatic as a really charismatic guy, like a politician but not a corrupt one I mean a straight forward charismatic politician who is great at convincing people to follow his cause. Yeah that's as charismatic as I am. I convince people of stuff all the time and I'm pretty good at it. I once convinced a dieing man to give me all of the money in his pocket so I could go give it to somebody. I don't know what else to write, but yeah I do a lot of convincing in my day. Anywho I am hungry, actually no I am not I just ate, but anyway whoever is reading this you should send me a pizza roll in the mail because I would eat it and be forever in your debt and I would give you a cookie or something. See? Convincing and what not. Five more words now and done.

Journal #297 - Persistence

Persistence is pretty important and stuff. You always have to persist and never give up in all of your attempts at stuff and what not. That reminds me of a song by Kanye West. The line goes something along the lines of "giving up is so harder for me than trying" or something like that. That is a great example of persistence. Persistence means just to keep on going and trying the hardest you can in all of your attempts at everything. That was hilarious I just made this funny noise and it was funny and it demonstrated my attempts at persisting to be funny. TIE IN TO THE BLOG OH MAN WHO IS THIS KID!?!?! Anyway yeah just keep trying and stuff. It's like that story The Little Train that Could. That train BELIEVED that he could succeed and by the Train Gods he made it up that hill and did it all through persistence and in my opinion a little light steroid use buy hey whatever man. Yea persistence is great and what not it's good for you and you gotta keep on goin and not stoppin to you get there and stuff. So yeah just keep on persisting and you'lll get what you desire, just keep the Little train that could and the tortoise in the tortoise in the hare. Good things will come if you continue on in your efforts and just attempt your hardest at everything and never giving up. Persistence is a Greek word I believe. I don't know actually I just made that up on the spot. I'd have to look it up but yeah it's a word to be sure, just that I am a little sketchy on the origin of the word itself but hey whatever not that big of a deal right? I just need twenty or so more words and I am done with this blog on persistence that I just wrote about so admirable and like a boss if I do say so myself.