In author Ambrose Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the reader is given several hints to the stories dark and inevitable ending. This foreshadowing manifests itself in the form .
Within the first few paragraphs, Bierce paints a vivid account of the landscape surrounding the inevitable ending of death by hanging for the main character of Peyton Farquahar, a well-to-do planter from Alabama.
Bierce then spends several pages trying to convince the reader, quite effectively, that Peyton's hanging may have indeed had a different outcome than expected. That the hanging rope had broken, and he was eventually reunited with his family; far from the reaches of the northern soldiers.
The first hint of Peyton's actual fate is introduced as he has apparently fallen from the bridge as the northern soldiers attempt to hang him. As he enters the water, Bierce tells us that Payton keeps sinking until the light from above is merely a gleam, and states " How distant, how inaccessible" and then continues to sink even further into darkness. Not a very likely scenario considering that Bierce purports Peyton to have fallen into a creek. Thereby showing us Peyton is slowly dying of the hanging that has actually taken place. And what Bierce is stating is more of a dream than reality.
This is further supported by the statement from Bierce that as the light has almost completely faded, it again starts to grow brighter as he feels himself rising in the water towards the surface with some reluctance; as he has become "comfortable" in his current state. .
Bierce then goes on to describe what Peyton first sees after reaching the surface of the river. As he looks to the bank, he sees everything with extreme clarity. Bierce even goes as far as to describe how Peyton can see the bugs on the leaves of the trees and the "Prismatic colors of the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass". These visions are not those of someone who is still of this earth, but those of an individual whom has past on from the mortal world.
