An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
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- For the Twilight Zone episode of the same name, see An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (The Twilight Zone).
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (sometimes called "An Incident at Owl Creek Bridge") is a famous short story by Ambrose Bierce. It was originally published in 1890, and first anthologized in Bierce's 1891 collection, Tales of Soldiers and Civilians.
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[edit] Plot
Set during the American Civil War, "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" is the story of Peyton Farquhar, a Confederate sympathizer condemned to die by hanging upon the Owl Creek Bridge of the title. The main character finds himself already bound at the bridge's edge at the beginning of the story. We later learn that a disguised Union scout enlisted him to attempt to demolish the bridge, and subsequently he was caught in the act.
When he is hanged, the rope breaks. Peyton falls into the water, escapes his executioners, and makes his way down the river toward his home. During his journey, he starts to experience strange physiological events that ultimately end with a searing pain in his neck.
It turns out that Peyton never escaped at all; he imagined the entire thing during the time between being pushed off the bridge and the noose finally breaking his neck.
[edit] Adaptations
At least three film adaptations of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" have been produced.
- A silent movie made in 1929 titled The Spy.
- A French version called "La Rivière du Hibou", directed by Robert Enrico and produced by Marcel Ichac and Paul de Roubaix, was released in 1962. Filmed in black and white. It later went on to win the award for best short subject at the 1962 Cannes film festival and 1963 Academy Awards. In 1964 "La Rivière du Hibou" aired on American television as an episode of the anthology series The Twilight Zone. See An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (The Twilight Zone).
- Another version, directed by Bryan James Egan, was released in 2005.
- The 1962 film Carnival of Souls, the 1990 film Jacob's Ladder, and the 2005 film Stay were inspired by An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (the latter even took place on a bridge), along with countless others. Sir William Golding's novel Pincher Martin uses a similar artifice as Bierce's story, and Golding admits the similarity in an afterword to the novel. Richard Kelly, the director of Donnie Darko has said it was an inspiration for his film. Lucille Fletcher used a similar plot for her story "The Hitch-hiker", which was itself adapted as a memorable episode of television's The Twilight Zone.
- David Lynch's movie Lost Highway is thought to be based on this story as well.
- The radio series Escape adapted the story for broadcast in 1947, and CBS Radio Mystery Theater did so in the 1970s.
- Another literary work that can be thought of as an adumbration of the Owl Creek Bridge theme is the short story "The Secret Miracle" by Jorge Luis Borges.
[edit] References in popular culture
The 2002 episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, "Vanishing Point (Enterprise episode)", is an adaptation of this short story. Most of the episode is imagined by Ensign Hoshi Sato during her first "beam up" use of the transporter.
The 2003 episode of Futurama, "Obsoletely Fabulous", is an adaptation of "Occurrence" in that the majority of the episode is imagined by the robot, Bender, during a brief "personality upgrade."
In 2005, Kurt Vonnegut referred to "Occurrence" in his book A Man Without a Country as one of the greatest works of American literature, and called anyone who hadn't read it a "twerp".
In 2006, Bierce's story was referenced on an episode of the ABC television series Lost entitled "The Long Con".
At the end of My Occurrence, an episode of the TV series Scrubs, it becomes apparent that the lead character has imagined many of the events of the episode as he does not want to believe that a friend has cancer.
