Short stories
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce · 1890
Opening lines
A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
In northern Alabama, a man stands on a plank laid across a railway bridge, his hands tied, a rope around his neck, under the guard of Federal army soldiers. A flashback tells who he is: a Southern planter whom circumstances have kept out of the war, to whom a horseman in a grey uniform came to explain that the bridge was guarded, that any civilian who touched the line would be hanged, and that dried driftwood was piled against the pier. The narrative returns to the bridge, and the sergeant steps away from the plank.
Context
The text appeared on 13 July 1890 in Hearst's San Francisco Examiner, where the author had been writing since 1887, then entered Tales of Soldiers and Civilians, a collection dated 1891 and published in San Francisco by a merchant friend, reissued in London in 1892 under the title In the Midst of Life. It is regarded as one of the first examples of stream of consciousness. His war stories, drawn from what he had seen, were quickly recognised among the best of the genre. In 1962, Robert Enrico's adaptation, La Rivière du hibou, won a prize at Cannes.
Who it is for
A very short story, in three parts. Best to know nothing about it before opening it, which most introductions make impossible.
Prizes and reception
Adapted several times for cinema and television, and regarded by Kurt Vonnegut as the greatest American short story.
Sources for this page 6
The pages consulted to check this page.