It is human nature for a person to occasionally daydream or get lost in thought. This can particularly be the case when one finds oneself in an unfavorable situation. Ambrose Bierce portrays the protagonist, Peyton Farquhar, facing this relevant experience, but on a more serious subject, death. In "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge", Ambrose Bierce uses euphemisms, reflecting real life and a dream state, as well as unrealistic and suspenseful details to prove that people use hallucinations to escape the reality of their lives , because hallucinations are sometimes better than reality. .Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay. Bierce blurs the storyline with subtle allusions and euphemisms. The title, “An Event at Owl Creek Bridge,” suggests that a hanging is just an “event,” but that is not the case. Hanging is a serious situation because they have cost a man's life irreversibly. The title symbolizes that, regardless of the era, death is generally ignored as if it were a normal "event". Peyton Farquhar's reality does not matter to those around him, which is why he begins to dream and exit his reality more quickly. Additionally, when Bierce writes “death is a dignitary,” he blurs the meaning of death itself. Comparing death to a dignitary is to say that death is of great importance and respect, which is how the sentries, the deputy sheriff and the captain handle the situation. Bierce feels opposed to the fact that many people do not see death for what it really is, as can be seen in the story, because the officers see Peyton Farquhar's death as an event and not as the murder of 'a soul. Bierce wants the reader to interpret that people are always killed in one way or another. The author also uses the hallucination itself to show how reality gradually tries to reveal itself. When Bierce says, “one lodged between his collar and his neck; it was uncomfortably hot and he tore it off. » He's referring to the noose around Peyton Farquhar's neck, which is just as uncomfortable in real life as it is in the dream. Farquhar is in such a deep subconscious state that he can't get out of it, but why would he really want to face his reality? His dream state is currently much more inviting than his reality, so he remains in his illusion until he dies. Any rational person would agree to stay in an adventurous dream, like the one experienced by Farquhar, rather than suffer and consciously suffocate. Literary critic FJ Logan said that "we readers are confronted with a series of uncertainties that reflect the narrator's limitations." Logan states that Bierce's extraordinary diction through the narrator blurs the ultimate explosion at the end. Bierce's concise execution of euphemisms protects the reader and Farquhar from the "happening" of death, the meaning of death, the limitations of the narrator, and the effectiveness of hallucination. Ambrose Bierce also uses literary devices to show the mirror between Farquhar's reality and his illusion. First, Bierce uses subtle imagery such as “he traveled unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum.” Through excellent diction and storytelling, Bierce uses imagery to depict Farquhar having a feeling of suspension in his dream, when in reality he has just been hanged and he is literally swinging back and forth like a pendulum. Peyton Farquhar's brain protects his body fromtrauma of hanging. In most humans, an individual's brain cannot handle the trauma of reality, which sends most people into coma, hallucinations, or loss of consciousness. Additionally, Bierce portrays Farquhar as a character who fails to balance his reality with his hallucinations when he sees "a piece of dancing driftwood" that he was aware of and which "caught his attention and his eyes l Farquhar's internal struggle to find balance is counterbalanced by his dreams because he has a vivid imagination and you can even see this when he decides to alter the bridge so that it goes down in history as a “war hero”. All of Farquhar's imaginations seem to be fine, but Farquhar clearly doesn't think them all perfectly because he never escapes the rope and never becomes a war hero. Dreams can also make people do things they don't usually do and they can be distracting which has an unaddressed concept that dreams have negative connotations. To add that Farquhar's reality reflects his fantasy, Bierce uses Peyton Farquhar's final thoughts to mirror or verbatim mimic his dream state. While Farquhar is still alive, he thinks: "If I could free my hands... perhaps I could throw away the noose and throw myself into the steam." He also fixes his last thought on his wife, which corresponds in the dream to the fact that he almost enters "the light" and sees his wife before he dies. Ambrose Bierce uses this technique to give clues to the final outcome of the story. Bierce also used this technique as a euphemism to not confuse, but distract the reader from the actual unfolding of the story. For comparison, literary expert Roy Morris Jr. said, "He certainly used other personal experiences to write the story: the real Owl Creek, which borders the Shiloh battlefield...is exactly the same as the era of history.” Bierce uses his own knowledge gained in combat to give a detailed plot and imitate his personal experience in the short story. The fact that the time of the battle correlates with the time of the story compares and reflects Bierce's reality and the fiction of the story through a conception of real life and the dream state. Bierce could most likely understand the writing of this short story as a way to escape his own harsh reality in a sense. Ambrose Bierce uses unrealistic or suspenseful details to convey the underlying theme of how Farquhar perceives and reacts to his reality and hallucinations. For example, Farquhar can see his surroundings in great detail as he hallucinates in the quote: "He felt the ripples in his face... he looked at the forest by the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veins of each leaf. This detail is so unrealistic and impractical that it practically shows that Peyton Farquhar is clearly not in reality. Bierce's narration once again turns the reader's attention away from the hallucination aspect. Having unrealistic meanings tends to occur in most dreams which can be related to the motif of the story. Additionally, Bierce uses a subtle and partly unrecognizable tone to suggest that since Peyton Farquhar is a Southern secessionist, this is meant to justify his death at first glance to the reader. Bierce uses an overly sarcastic tone when he states that "Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, from an old and well-respected Alabama family." For Bierce, Farquhar's death was a tragedy, and especially for what he did that cost him.