SOURCE: Davidson, Cathy N. “The Process of Perception.” In The Experimental Fictions of Ambrose Bierce, pp. 45-55. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.

In the following excerpt, Davidson explores the perceptions of Peyton Farquhar, the protagonist of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” focusing on how they are affected by his inevitable execution.

Bierce's protagonists are usually known by their failures, failures that show the limits and the limitations of a particular character's particular perspective. In this respect the test passed sometimes proves nothing. Survival becomes an accident of obtuseness in a few stories such as “A Watcher by the Dead,” a tale that shows two characters, Doctors Helberson and Harper, who do not even recognize that they have been tested at all. The test failed, however, is always indicative. It proves perceptual shortcomings, shortcomings that are not transcended through a belated recognition of their existence (when such recognition...