Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge"
offers us as readers options. We have two ways to read the story. We can look
at the picture and choose to just look on the surface of the real issue, or we
can look from a more romanticist perspective looking for the meaning behind the
picture. While realism shows the shot of what is actually there: the entire
picture in one or two sentences; romanticism goes deeper. Romanticism shows
more than who the character(s) is/are but more fully what they are. I used to
like to think of romanticism as a writing style that is flowery or
over-dramatic. After carefully studying what romanticism actually is I have
come to a more accurate definition and it adds more meaning to every story I
now read.
Romanticism is more than just the descriptive writing style that I
initially thought. Romanticism encompasses the life of a character while
describing every aspect that is in that picture taken by realism and far beyond even that. To read from
a romanticist perspective you have to be looking between the lines. The answer
will not be spelled out for you. Bierce does this really well, almost too well.
When I was given the assignment in class to read this story for the first time
I was really confused at what I was looking for. I thought I knew enough about
romanticism and realism to accurately point out what is considered romanticist
and realist writing, and I did. However, what I didn't know was how deep romanticism
can be. Reading Bierce's story in this new light changed my perspective in a
lot of ways, but the most important is what I read for. Romanticist writing is
more than just writing. It has messages and themes throughout that are
completely on their own agenda. You just have to look for them. When I think of
romanticism I think now a little differently than I did before. I look at how the style affects the story more than just how wordy or
descriptive is this part of the story.
- Highly
imaginative and subjective
- Emotional
intensity
- Escapism
- Common
man as hero
- Nature
as refuge, source of knowledge and/or spirituality
This is a list compiled by a website I have linked to my side bar.
This was a list that helped
open my eyes as to what romanticism actually is.
Turning our focus back to
Bierce's story "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" romanticism is
everywhere. I noticed it immediately as I compared this list to the
story:
Highly imaginative and
subjective: I think, and I am pretty confident in this "I think", that the story is all a dream. The way the character subconsciously describes the meat of the story is interesting. This is an example for reading between the lines. It took me a couple of times reading through this before I ever picked it up. For example, in the first
section we go through the description of this man, and we know very little
about why he is being killed. Bierce puts a lot of focus on the surrounding
soldiers what they are doing, and how it is affecting the man. He thinks what would happen if he were to get loose. The last line in section one Bierce writes, "As these
thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed
man's brain rather than evolved from it the captain nodded to the sergeant. The
sergeant stepped aside". What does he mean by "doomed the man's brain rather than evolved from it"? This is a question I wouldn't have picked up on had I only read this story from a realist perspective. The thoughts "doomed" instead of "evolved" . The story goes on as if he does escape and goes on this dangerous and treacherous journey. But what if the thoughts are actually just thoughts from that first section of the story. Something to consider.
Another
example is found in the very last section of the story. The man has gone
through some pretty rough times and has finally found his way home. Bierce writes,
"Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while walking, for
now he sees another scene". Who describes real life as a scene? Unless it
is something they are imagining in their minds...coincidence I think
not!
I also think
you could label this coincidence as escapism. Peyton Farquhar is in a
very stressful situation imagining a more dignified way of dying
could be and certainly looks like escapism. This also encompasses emotional
intensity. As the entire story is based around Peyton's quest to find happiness
again.
The list goes on and on but
it became clear to me that romanticism is found in everything we read. It is a
cycle of the deeper we read the more romanticism we will find.
Maybe that is the point,
maybe the romanticism is really in our minds. I think romanticism is a style of
writing and does have distinct characteristics that differentiate them from
other types of writing; however, maybe when you get to the meat of the story is
when we have to allow our minds to wonder in order to find an answer.
This is probably making no
sense and it probably only makes sense to me but these are sincere thoughts I
had while reading this story. I bet you didn't know I had it in me did ya?!
Again my wonderful professor, Brother Cameron, provided this description with romanticism:
"Romanticism is the reaction to the Enlightenment".
"I think therefore I am" (Descartes).
I again will open this up to you. What do you think it means? To me it means that romanticism is whatever you want it to be. It involves so much more than just the character development, plot development and writing style. Romanticism dives into the world of uncontrolled chaos and I think that is beautiful. I think it is amazing that writers are able to write in such a way that the meaning is different to everyone who reads it. Because romanticism and realism are so closely connected through this story the meaning to me remains the same, I'll get into that meaning in another post. But, the way Bierce and other writers utilize the attributes and qualities of both styles allows for a great and sensational thought provoking process for the reader. And to me that is powerful! 
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