NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
In the stories An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce, and The Three Strangers, by Thomas Hardy, there are major surprises that conclude the story and provide for an exciting tale of criminal justice. Both of these stories are set in the late 1800 's, while An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge takes place in Alabama and The Three Strangers takes place in England. In The Three Strangers, there is no apparent protagonist, no single major character but rather a number of characters, and there is no apparent conflict. At first the major character seems to be Shepherd Fennel, but he stands out only as the host and the opener of doors for the three strangers. The first stranger might then seem the major character, especially when the second stranger arrives and is not given as much attention by the guests or by the author as the first stranger. Here the story establishes the beginning of a conflict, but a confusing one because it seems no more than a contrast of personalities.
The third stranger to enter the cottage does not stay long enough to be a protagonist, for he leaves as quickly as he enters. However, it is clear, once all the characters have been involved in the story, that a conflict between aspects of legality and the law. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the conflict is between the planter and the officials or between life and death. There is also a conflict between the reader and the story, who is rather confused in justifying if the planter is in reality alive or deceased.
The major character is the planter, who is subjected to be hanged for war conflicts and is trying to think of a way to defeat his given fate. As his time of death approaches, there is a time of mixed feelings and images to whereas it is hard to distinguish between life and death or somewhere in the middle. Then, a sense of reality takes place, where the planter is freeing himself from his ropes, from which he was hanged, and dodging bullets. From there, the planter is finding his way home. He finds his way home, to his wife, when is feels a sharp pain, as in a bullet. The story ends briefly with a message stating that the planter had been handed and is dead, on Owl Creek bridge.
The main idea in both of the stories is the one side of reality and the other side of fantasy. This opposition can be analyzed according to the events that happen on each side of reality and fantasy. Although readers may not be aware of it during the early part of the story, Hardy and Bierce arrange events to demonstrate a generous view and conflict between right and wrong; reality and fantasy. In The Three Strangers, Hardy writes the first part of the story of the way of life of the natives of England who are shown to be warm and human.
Have is actually trying to build up one side of the conflict by demonstrating that his natives are nice, ordinary peasant people that use their judgments on matters of life and death. The setting places the story in a normal place, where things are quite and things happen the same way and time every day. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Bierce starts out in the story by explaining the setting around the story. It is explained like the scene is an ordinary scene, one that takes place every day. Bierce is really trying to say that this type of hanging is not out of the ordinary for the officials, but for the proposed dead prisoner, it is a new adventure; one that leads him to various stages of thought. This provides for the conflict between the character and death, the character and the guards, and the reader with reality.
The setting provides for the normalcy of the entire story. The battle of the war was fought here, so the battle between life and death for the planter must be fought here. Bierce drives the reader through the good and bad and the reality from the fantasy. By far, the most powerful aspect of the plot is the positive and just side, represented by the Fennels, their guests, and the first and third strangers in The Three Strangers, and by the planter in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In The Three Strangers, the Fennels are good folk, no more and no less, and their feelings about life are best shown by their celebration of the christening of their baby. Using the law, the story makes clear that such people favor fairness and feel that the law is the right and just way to live.
Because the first stranger had been sentenced to be hanged, the other guests fell silent. The guests are also slow and unwilling to go out looking for the fugitive, when pushed by the hangman to go out looking for him. They also produce the wrong man. These are the characters toward whom Hardy directs our understanding, sympathy, attention, and admiration. Any attempt to sentence anyone wrongly, as the law has done with Summers, brings out hesitation and resistance.
In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the planter is a good man with a nice family and a solid job. His feelings of life are best shown by the way he thinks of his children and his wife. His thoughts are loving and compassionate, making one feel sympathetic and wanting to release this man. The story describes the law as injustice and unwilling to let go of a free man. Bierce does not go into detail about what the planter's crime was, nor does he illustrate what horrific crime he has committed to deserve the rash punishment. One must feel that the story really has two sides, besides what is real and what is fantasy; the other sides of the law and the crime.
The aspects of the plot are the countryside, in The Three Strangers, and the bridge, in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, make opponents for the evilness of the stories. In The Three Strangers, the steep hill causes the searchers, including the "evil" Hangman, to stumble and fall, causing them to make mistakes. After the search is considered a waste, the people and the countryside unite to reconsider the harsh law. The "woods and fields and lanes. " Together with the "lofts and outhouses" (paragraph 160), furnish hiding places for Summers, so that his man, the first stranger, is "never recaptured" (paragraph 161). In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the bridge causes some difficulty in the planter's imagination. The "evil" general and his "evil" army have a hard time killing the planter because he holds his breath and swims away, making it hard for the soldiers to spot him. "Farquhar dived-dived as deeply as he could" (paragraph 26).
In both stories the plot is strong because it is real and because the people themselves are presented as a collective force for fairness and justice over an application of law that is unfair and unjust. In The Three Strangers, the plot does not account for the story's power. Hardy skillfully paints a sympathetic picture of the shepherds and their way -- a way of friendliness and good will in which the literal and harsh application of law has little place. His contrasting antagonist, the Hangman, personally violates the shepherd's home just as the law he represents violates the concept of justice felt by the people there.
Admittedly, the complete interesting of the plot does not seem certain until the circumstances are explained by the brother of the convicted felon -- an explanation that makes clear the opposition between the people's justice and the Hangman's injustice. Thus, the climax of the story involves when the brother is captured and tells the real truth. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the plot is the story's power. Bierce writes of an unsympathetic character, who does not acknowledge his guilt, whom just wants to be with his family.
When the planter is running away, or thinking of running away, he does not consider that what he did is wrong and that he is receiving the fair punishment for it. The concepts of life and death are the only things that matter. The climax involves when the planter is running away from the guards and dodging bullets. The reader, nor the character knows what is going to happen next.
Unlike The Three Strangers, the climax is in the middle of the story, whereas in The Three Strangers, the climax is more in the end of the story. Both of these stories include big surprises that contribute to the stories amazing climaxes and unforgiving endings. The plot and structures of the stories are relative to each other in how they come to their climaxes and of how they represent their characters with no remorse. Both authors develop their characters similarly, making them victims of an unjust criminal law system.
Free research essays on topics related to: occurrence at owl creek, owl creek bridge, part of the story, major character, life and death
Research essay sample on Owl Creek Bridge Occurrence At Owl Creek
