Esmerai Sanchez

Mrs. Angulo

Ap English 11 p6

2/2/17

Occurrence Comparison

Ambrose Bierces short story, An Occurrence at Owl Bridge and the movie version of

the same name can be compared and contrasted according to their emotions and details.

Although there are similarities between the short story and film, there are more differences

between the two. In fact, there is an advantage to having read the short story before seeing the

film because it gives a better idea of what happened and who the man is in the story.

As a reader the short story had more emotional connectivity than the movie because

one sees and feels the key words or phrases. Knowing all the details about Farquhar develops

his imaginary escape to achieve his dream of coming back with his family. What the movie

doesnt show are Farquhars sensitive thoughts which made him see everything different, in a

different perspective. Those thoughts are perfectly described by Bierce in the story, in

sentences as he felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck,

or when he said a fish slid along beneath his eyes and heard the rush of its body parting the

water. Another fact that made the movie different from the short story is that in the movie the

watchers never find out the reason of how this man ended up there. In contrast to this, in the

written version, the author gives the explanation, when in the second part of the story he talks

about the soldier scouted from the north, who tricks Farquhar by making him believe according

to his gray clothing that he was a confederate soldier. The last, but not less important is the
simple detail that contradicts Farquhars physical characteristics between the movie and the

story. This contradictory physical characteristic was that in the story, Bierce describes Farquhar

as a man with no whiskers and in the movie the character representing Farquhar wore

whiskers.

In both versions one can find some similarity that shows the good translation from the

paper to the TV screen. The first one is the recognition or distinguishing of the Civil War period.

This is possible to recognize because of the good soldiers appearance, characteristic and the

good description about the types of gun and machinery used in the movie and the short story.

Another aspect was that in both versions details were given of the possible reasons of why

Farquhar was hanged. For example, the sign shown in the movie or the motive of destroying

the bridge, wrote by Bierce in the short story. But the reality is that in both versions there was

not an explained exact reason of why this planter man was executed.

In conclusion, the two versions of the An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge show in

their own style, the points of view of the stage of a dying man. Although in the written version

there are more details and information that help to understand better the main idea of the

story, the movie also delivers the desperation mood of a condemned man that gave a better

picture of Farquhar current trauma.