An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

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Ambrose Bierce (1892)

An Occurrence Owl Creek Bridge at (German translation 1965 incident on the Eulenfluß Bridge of Anneliese Dangel) is a short story by Ambrose Bierce , the first time in the collection Tales of Soldiers and Civilians in America and shortly thereafter in the English edition of this 1891 anthology under the more neutral title In the Midst of Life was published. The story makes use of the technique of unreliable narration and portrays the hallucinatory notions and the rescue vision of the protagonist at the moment of his death after he was sentenced to death as an alleged agent of the Confederate and by one in the American Civil War Union Forces Command is executed at Owl Creek Bridge.

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Union soldiers on the Potomac River 1861
First edition of Tales of Soldiers and Civilians 1891
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge , excerpt from the 1891 first edition

The external plot of this narrative is simple. Without an exposure , the preparations that a command of the Union soldiers initiated for the execution of a civilian from the southern states , the wealthy and highly respected plantation owner and slave owner Peyton Farquhar from Alabama , are described in detail from an uninvolved observer's perspective . The convict stands with the noose around his neck on a wooden railroad bridge spanning Owl Creek, his feet on a loose rail sleeper jutting out into the river, which will fall under his body weight as soon as the Union soldier steps aside, holding it with his weight burdened at the other end. While Peyton Farquhar's gaze wanders from the loose wooden bridge on which he stands to a piece of driftwood floating in the water, his associative images summarize the entire development that led to this execution situation.

The piece of driftwood points back to the driftwood that had washed ashore on the wooden bridge piers, which Peyton Farquhar wanted to set on fire to stop the advance of Union troops by destroying the bridge. This act of sabotage, based on patriotic zeal, was motivated by a gray-clad Union spy who visited Farquhar in his home, ardently devoted to the cause of the southern states, in a Confederate uniform, and induced him to go to this company with false information about the guarding of the bridge.

However, Peyton Farquhar's associations with the past also extend to the future: he sees in the driftwood floating in the water the wooden plank that will fall into the water at the moment of being hung and float in the river like this piece of wood. And another association is triggered by the piece of wood floating in the water: Farquhar also sees himself, his body, floating in the water. This becomes the trigger for his salvation hallucinations . If he could get his hands free, he could throw off the noose and jump into the river. He could protect himself from the bullets by immersing himself. If he could swim hard enough he would come to shore and flee through the forest on the other side and escape home.

In the third part of the short story, this vision is turned into a hallucinatory reality . Farquhar apparently manages to get his hands free and swim to safety from the bullets of the soldiers behind a bend in the river. After almost 24 hours of hardship, he rushes home through the forest on the other bank of the river and, exhausted, with sore feet and almost starved, sees his wife on the threshold of his house in the light of the morning sun the next day, as she comes down from the veranda comes towards him and, smiling, reaches out her arms to him.

When he is about to fall into his wife's arms, he feels a numbing blow on the neck. He hears an explosive bang; dazzling white light shoots up around him - then everything is dark and still. As the narrator laconically says, Peyton Farquhar is dead; with a broken neck, his body swings under the thresholds of the Owl River Bridge.

Interpretative approach

In its external structure, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge consists of three separate parts. The first section begins in the presence of the narrative with a detailed description of the preparations for the execution; The narrative time is considerably longer than the narrated time: on about five pages, a few minutes of narrated time are reported. This is followed by a flashback on about three pages in which the prerequisites for present-day events are shown. The third section begins again in the presence of the narrative, the execution is carried out.

In the few moments before his death, Farquhar lived through the dream of a surprising rescue and daring escape. The description, which is reproduced from Farquhar's point of view, covers a narrated time of about 24 hours, while in fact only a few seconds pass. There is a non-resolvable discrepancy between the temporal-spatial and the subjective psychological perspective ; At the end the reader only receives a brief message that the execution has been carried out.

The introductory scene is designed as a factual, uninvolved eyewitness report; the narrator gives neither the convict's name nor the reasons for his execution; Likewise, the place and time of the execution are initially not explained in detail. Only in the further course of the story does the narrator turn to the condemned. His portrayal of the man is so positive that the psychological basis for the reader is prepared for sympathy and empathy for Farquhar's thoughts, ideas and illusions : “His eyes were large and dark gray. According to her friendly expression, one would not have suspected a man with the noose around his neck. Apparently the man was no ordinary murderer. " This remark leads to an ironic comment by the narrator, in which he explains to the reader the futility of the execution: " The generous military law has just taken precautions that many kinds of people can be hanged. Gentlemen not excluded. " (P. 11)

As Rainer Schöwerling shows in his analysis of the short story, the presentation "of the executioner's last preparations is interrupted by the use of futuristic subjunctive forms that keep the further course of the plot in suspension and thus create tension." Accordingly, the short story says: "At a signal from the officer, he [the sergeant] would step aside, the plank would tip over and the convict would hang between two thresholds" (p. 19). This ends the eyewitness account; in clear contrast to this, only the man's thoughts, feelings and sensory impressions are described below. The story now reproduces what happened from his point of view; but Peyton Farquhar's perceptions do not match the reality described above. While the river flows fast under his feet in reality "He [...] let his gaze wander to the swirling water of the river, which rushed unruly under his feet" (p. 19), his subjective perception is completely opposite: "How slowly it seemed [the driftwood] to move! What a sluggish river [sic]! " (P. 19)

In this passage, the reader receives the first indication that there is a gap between the objective course of time and the subjective perception of time. Immediately afterwards the condemned person heard a strange, eerie noise that seemed to him like the ringing of a death knell: “[...] a sharp, metallic blow rang out, as bright as the blacksmith's hammer on the anvil. The man wonders what that could be, whether it was near or infinitely far away - both seemed possible. The sound rang out regularly [...] like the ringing of a death knell. ” (P. 20) The intervals between the noises are getting longer and longer: “ The man awaited every blow with impatience and a fear that was inexplicable to himself. The intervals between the beats gradually became longer [...]. What he heard was the ticking of his clock ” (p. 20). In a man's subjective sense of time, seconds become minutes; the reader is being prepared for the extreme time stretching in the third part of the short story.

Peyton Farquhar thought of escape and rescue; the modalities of the illusion of escape are here foreseen: “If I could get my hands free, I could throw off the noose and jump into the river [sic]. If I swim vigorously, I would come to shore. Then I could disappear into the woods and escape home. My house, thank God, is still out of their range ” (p. 20). The description of Peyton Farquhar's considerations is interrupted again and again by the point of view of the distant reporter, who emphasizes that the man's plans and thoughts hardly spring from reason: “The thoughts that were put into words here were not actually thought by the convicted person, they twitched through his mind. ” (p. 20) This emphasizes the unrealistic content of these ideas, which“ come from the subconscious, as it were, dictated by the instinct for self-preservation. ”Immediately afterwards, the execution of the execution is then indicated in the last sentence of this section : “Meanwhile the captain nodded to the sergeant. He stepped aside. " (P. 20)

At the height of the tension, the description of the present events is interrupted by a flashback in which the causes and backgrounds of the events are unfolded. This flashback also serves to create a kind of psychological motivation for Farquhar's subsequent illusion of flight.

Ironically , the narrator reports that Farquhar came from "circumstances of a higher order" (p. 21); H. for compelling reasons could not join the Confederate army, although he tried with all his might to represent the cause of the south. His feelings here are those of "a prevented war hero", as Schöwerling explains in his interpretation. “He would have loved to have lived the freer life of a soldier and had the opportunity to receive an award. [...] He was convinced that this opportunity would come, as always in times of war. " (P. 21)

At the moment of death, Farquhar flees in his inner view from the reality of war into the illusion of a glorious heroic deed and at this point falls victim to a complete disturbance of reality and senses. The flashback in which Farquhar remembers discussing the details of the attack with his guest ends in shock; in the form of a punch line , the reader learns that the alleged Confederate soldier in reality a Scout ( scout ) the opposing Union troops was. As Manfred Durzak writes in his interpretation of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge , this passage of the story underscores “the contradictions of a war situation that has been covered up with patriotic lies of justification”, since “Farquhar, who got into the machinery of war out of naive patriotism as a spy is hanged, while the actual spy is justified by the logic of the war and can presumably still be able to claim the possession of Farquhar for himself later ”.

Farquhar's plan is from the outset pointless and doomed to failure; his prowess is to be hanged. The reality of war looks completely different from the false ideal that Farquhar has made for himself.

In the description of the escape and rescue hallucination in the last part of the story, the narrator primarily reproduces sensory impressions to which Farquhar reacts with a kind of “ surreal perception”: “He was now completely in control of his senses. They were even supernaturally clear and awake, so sharpened and refined by the terrible disturbance of his life system that they perceived things that they had not perceived before. ” (P. 25) He feels the rippling waves on his Face, sees the veins in the leaves of the trees in the forest on the river bank and hears the song of the mosquitoes over the whirlpools and the clink of the dragonfly's wings. He also perceives the shimmering bodies of the insects and the rainbow colors of the dewdrops that sparkle on the blades of grass. (P. 25) The description of the forest is laid out as a “typical magic and initiation scene”; then u. a. also indicated by the “blind motif of the incomprehensible noises”: “ When Farquhar looked up in this forest aisle , large golden stars flashed above him, unknown to him and in strange constellations. He was convinced that they were arranged according to a plan that was secretly disastrous. Isolated sounds came from the woods on both sides of the road. Beneath it he heard once, then again and again, whispers in a foreign language. " (P. 29)

If the narrator initially emphasizes the pseudo-character of the experience in Farquhar's consciousness through the frequent use of the verbs “appear” or “seem”, the illusion of a real escape is increasingly created for both the protagonist and the reader. Only towards the end of the story do Farquhar's sensory impressions become increasingly ambiguous and threatening; he feels thirsty and pain, his throat is terribly swollen and suddenly he can no longer feel the ground beneath his feet. (P. 29f.)

According to Manfred Durzak, this part of the short story shows "the innovative literary power of Bierce" because "every momentary thought that flashes through Farquhar's consciousness shortly before the firing squad [...] becomes a hallucinatory reality in the third part implemented. ”Farquhar apparently succeeds in putting his rescue ideas into practice; the reality of war appears to be obliterated by what Durzak calls a " paradisiacal counter-reality that reveals itself in the beauty of nature and in the beauty of women." To have reached other banks of the river as follows: “Diamonds, rubies, emeralds - nothing beautiful occurred to him that this sand was not like. The trees on the bank were giant garden plants, he found that [sic] they stood in a well-considered order, and inhaled the scent of their flowers. A strange reddish light shone between the trunks. The wind played in the branches like on aeolian harps . [...] Fresh, cool and charming to look at, his wife comes down to him from the veranda [...] with a smile of infinite happiness on her lips. " (P. 28 and 30)

At the moment of the embrace, Farquhar's consciousness dissolves in a wave of light. "The vision of salvation and the utopia of a counter-reality are explained by the narrator's final sentence [sic], who describes the body of the dead swinging on a rope across the river, to the hallucinatory hope in the fraction of time when the noose contracted to death by suffocation."

For Durzak, the intensity of this short story by Bierce lies not only in the fact that he unmasked the war in all its chaotic senselessness, but also that he describes processes of consciousness beyond all psychologization with a significant degree of concreteness and density of reality, concentrating on the brief moment of death.

criticism

While "Bitter Bierce" and his socially critical journalism were well known or better notorious during his lifetime, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge , like his other stories published in the Tales of Soldiers and Civilians collection , found little favor with his contemporaries. Bierce therefore turned back to journalism.

In literary criticism, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Bierce in general received little attention for a long time, although some of his best short stories are featured in all popular anthologies. For a long time in literary history only his dependence on Edgar Allan Poe and his pessimism were seen; a more detailed examination of his short prose did not take place until the outbreak of the First World War. The artistic value of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was not gradually recognized in literary studies and criticism until World War I; After the Second World War, however, Bierce's short prose experienced a kind of renaissance .

Impact history

According to Manfred Durzak, Ambrose Bierce created with An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge not only the “prototype of a short story that unfolds a totality of meaning in a tiny moment of insight”, but also demonstrated in the “design the shockingly impersonal, rationally inexplicable force of destruction of war [a] prophetic clairvoyance that foreshadows the battlefields of the First and Second World Wars. ”The special narrative attitude,“ the objectifying attitude of a narrator who is as it were committed to reality ”, who from an eyewitness attitude not only portrays events neutrally, but also commented judgmental, as well as "the sovereignly used figure perspective, which replaces the objective chronological time by the subjective experience of the protagonist" and thus presents a shocking as well as fascinating look of horror, were according to Durzak "trend-setting" for the short story in the following period; the horror is no longer tied into “a preconceived system of reality”: the reader himself is encouraged to participate in judgment.

Ambrose Bierce himself dealt with the poetics of the short story, closely following the philosophy of Edgar Allan Poe's composition and expressly emphasized its artistic superiority over the novel. In the short story it'll solely on the concentration and Imaginations stimulation of the reader to, but not to the protracted reportage-like rendition of reality contexts, such as in the novel.

The East German writer Stephan Hermlin sees Bierce in the great narrative line of Edgar Allan Poe , Nathaniel Hawthorne , Herman Melville and Stephen Crane as, as he writes, the " chronicler of a new apocalypse ". What Hermlin emphasizes about An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is in particular "the precision of a reporter-like spelling" that seems to be oriented towards the surface of the outside world, but depicts this reality in such a way that a new view of reality emerges. Above all, Hermlin emphasizes Bierce's “laconicism, the meticulousness with which he sets visual and acoustic accents.” What Bierce himself describes as imagination in his theoretical explanations describes for him “the process of discovering an inner time dimension, the subjective Conscious experience of external reality, whereby objectively passing and subjectively perceived time overlap. "Hermlin refers to another special feature of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge : the irritation for the reader, which arises from the fact that he is encouraged to identify with the perspective of the figure, but then in the end is startled and unsettled by the harsh and cruel incursion of the outside world. Martin Schulze also sees this end, which is characteristically surprising for Bierce, and speaks of a “ snap of the fable ”. According to Schulze, this “trick […] removes the horror already generated in the course of the plot for a moment and leads the reader on a path opposite to the original path, in order to finally bring down the previously indicated cruelty of fate with double force on character and reader allow."

In his discussion of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Hermlin comes to the conclusion: "He [Bierce] knew about psychological and artistic things that had not yet been recognized in his time." He himself adopted the model of this short story from Bierce directly in his story Der Leutnant York von Wartenburg . According to Durzak, the focus here is on an execution situation following the failed enterprise on July 20, 1944. At the moment of execution, as in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, “the vision of liberation and rescue as a counter-reality that goes out in an explosion of lights” flashes in the protagonist's consciousness when the protagonist is thrown out of a curve in the car on the way to Germany where a great revolutionary uprising is about to break the power of Hitler and the National Socialists .

In his analysis of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge , Durzak further explains that Bierce anticipated Ernest Hemingway's later style intentions in his narrative .

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is primarily regarded as a forerunner for the structure of Hemingway's short story The Snows of Kilimanjaro , which was first published in Esquire in August 1936 and is narrated among his best works. Like Bierce's short story, Hemingway's story is also about a man who imagines his rescue so realistically and vividly that the reader gets the impression that it actually took place. Hemingway's short story also begins with the situation of approaching death, then fades back to describe how it came to this, and then reaches for the imagined rescue, only to end in shock with the objective determination of the actual death that has occurred.

Stories with a similar structure and a comparable structure can also be found in German-language fantastic literature, especially in Leo Perutz and Alexander Lernet-Holenia , whose novella Der Baron Bagge (1936) takes place in the First World War and contains clear echoes of Owl Creek Bridge : Both Stories are about a war participant and his apparent return home; the symbol of the bridge as the point of intersection between life and death is common to both. In contrast to Peyton Farquhar, however, Baron Bagge survived and was able to tell of his dream experiences in the “Zwischenreich” himself.

Durzak also refers to the importance of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge for the literary work of the German post-war writer Wolfgang Weyrauch . According to Durzak, Weihrauch's attempt to narrate the time at the moment of death of the protagonist in various texts, starting with Die Minute des Negers (1953), is “inconceivable without the simultaneity [sic] in Bierce's short story” (Durzak says here the design of simultaneity, ie the literary design of simultaneity.)

Others

American Civil War. Antietam Creek October 1862. Illustration by Frank Leslie. © US Army

Ambrose Bierce volunteered in the Northern Army after attending a military school when the civil war broke out. After retiring from military service, he freelanced for newspapers in San Francisco . Like Mark Twain and Bret Harte , who achieved fame and prestige with their new “Western” literature, especially in England, Ambrose Bierce also tried his luck there, albeit without success. So he returned to America, where he worked again as a journalist and columnist .

The war remained the most important theme of his literary and journalistic work until the end of his life. His mysterious death is also related to it: Bierce went missing in Mexico in 1914 , where he was supposed to report on armed conflicts with insurgents .

In polemical articles and columns, Bierce dealt with socially critical issues and reprimanded vice and corruption in early capitalist America. In doing so, he expressed a disillusioned and cynical attitude that is rooted in a deep, culturally pessimistic rejection of American society after the civil war.

Adaptations

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge provided the template for several film adaptations.

In 1959, Robert Stevenson filmed the story under the same title as part of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series for American television with Ronald Howard in the lead role. A 28-minute French-language film version with Roger Jacquet as Peyton Farquhar, directed by Robert Enrico, followed in 1962 under the title La rivière du hibou . Robert Enrico then produced another 25-minute television version in English in 1964 under the title The Twilight Zone "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" again with Roger Jacquet in the role of Peyton Farquhar. Brian James Egen also wrote a script for a longer 51-minute film version based on Bierce's short story in 2005 under the original title An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge with Bradley Egen in the lead role and Brian James Egen as director. The motif of the 10-minute BAFTA award-winning short film Owl Creek Bridge by director John Giwa-Amu from 2007 is based on the short story by Bierce. This film version shows the last days of Khalid, who is being hung from an old wooden bridge by a gang of racist youths.

Various audio versions of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge were also produced. The American broadcaster CBS first broadcast a radio version of the story, edited by William N. Robson, in its escape program in 1947 . In addition, as part of its well-known series radio tales , National Public Radio also broadcast a set to music under the title Owl Creek Bridge: An adaptation of 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' by Ambrose Bierce .

In the German-speaking countries, an audio book was first produced in 2009 as an audio cassette with Günther Sauer and Wolfgang Reichmann as speakers under the title An incident at the Owl Creek Bridge . In 2005 it was set to music under the title Incident on the Owl River Bridge , read by Sven Görtz with Symphony No. 9 in E minor From the New World by Antonín Dvořák as an attached work.

literature

  • H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 73-95.
  • W. Gordon Cunliffe: Bierce, Ambrose · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge . In: John V. Hagopian, Martin Dolch (Eds.): Insight I Analyzes of American Literature. Hirschgraben Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1971, pp. 26-28.
  • Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 149-158.
  • Manfred Durzak: The German short story of the present: author portraits - workshop discussions - interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , pp. 160-169. (2nd edition 1983)

Web links

Commons : Ambrose Bierce  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Ambrose Bierce  - Sources and full texts (English)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Dusseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p 149. In the German translation of Werner Beyer and Joachim Martens was in the Midst of Life in the former East Germany for the first time in 1965 in the Dietrisch'schen Verlagsbuchhandlung to Leipzig published under the title Ambrose Bierce · Bittere Histories and also published in various licensed editions in West Germany, for example in 1969 by Schünemann Verlag in Bremen or in 1992 and 2004 by Weltbild Verlag , ISBN 3-8289-7687-5 . In 1978 the collection was published under the title In the Middle of Life We Are Surrounded by Death: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians from the American Civil War in the Edition Büchergilde , ISBN 3-434-05022-1 . Incident on the Owl River Bridge in Dangel's translation was also included in 2011 in the anthology American master stories published by Martin Schulze in Cologne's Anaconda Verlag , ISBN 978-3-86647-701-8 . The short story has partly appeared in German under other titles, e.g. B. as an incident at the Owl River Bridge in 1986 in the (East) Berlin publishing house Neues Leben or as an audio book in 1999 under the title An Incident at the Owl Creek Bridge or in 2005 as an incident on the Owl River Bridge .
  2. ↑ See the (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 84f.
  3. ↑ See the interpretation by Rainer Schöwerling in detail: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 150f. See also the (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , p. 82ff.
  4. ↑ See p. 18f in the edition of Weltbildverlag, from which is also quoted below.
  5. ↑ See also the (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 86 and 89ff.
  6. ↑ Cf. Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 151.
  7. ↑ See also the (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 84 and 87ff.
  8. ↑ Cf. Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 152. See also H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 83ff.
  9. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 152.
  10. ↑ See also the (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 90f.
  11. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 152. See also the (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 89f.
  12. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 152f.
  13. ↑ a b c Manfred Durzak: The German short story of the present: author portraits - workshop discussions - interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 164.
  14. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 153.
  15. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 154.
  16. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , p. 155.
  17. ↑ Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 154f. See also the (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 90f.
  18. ↑ Manfred Durzak: The German short story of the present: author portraits - workshop discussions - interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 164. The (English) analysis by H. Bodden, H. Kaußen: Great American Short Stories · Model Interpretations. 2nd rev. Edition. Klett Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-12-577130-7 , pp. 89f.
  19. ↑ Cf. Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author Portraits - Workshop Talks - Interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , pp. 160 and 164.
  20. ^ On the history of reception in detail, see Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 149f.
  21. ↑ Manfred Durzak: The German short story of the present: author portraits - workshop discussions - interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 160.
  22. ↑ Cf. Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author Portraits - Workshop Talks - Interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 160.
  23. ↑ See u. a. Bierce's essay The Short Story. In: Collected Works X: The Opinionator. New York / Washington 1911, pp. 234–248.
  24. ↑ Quoted from: Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author Portraits - Workshop Talks - Interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 161. Cf. also in detail the explanations in the chapter: Margund Durzak: Ambrose Bierce and Stephen Hermlin: On the reception of the American short story in Germany. In: Manfred Durzak: The America image in contemporary German literature . Stuttgart et al. 1979, ISBN 3-17-004871-6 , pp. 82–111, here p. 91 ff.
  25. ↑ Cf. Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author Portraits - Workshop Talks - Interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 161.
  26. ↑ Reproduced from: Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author portraits - workshop talks - interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 161 f.
  27. ↑ Martin Schulze: History of American Literature · From the beginnings to today . Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-549-05776-8 , p. 293.
  28. ↑ Quoted from: Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author Portraits - Workshop Talks - Interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 162.
  29. ↑ Cf. Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author Portraits - Workshop Talks - Interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 164 ff. Durzak goes into detail in his analysis on the parallels as well as differences in the two short prose works.
  30. ↑ Cf. Manfred Durzak: The German Short History of the Present: Author Portraits - Workshop Talks - Interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 163.
  31. ↑ See Phillip Young: Ernest Hemingway . Translated by Hans Dietrich Berendt, Diedrichs Verlag, Düsseldorf u. a. 1954, without ISBN, p. 167 f., And Carlos Baker: Hemingway - The Writer as Artist , Princeton University Press, 4th ed. 1972, p. 415 and 191-196.
  32. ↑ See Phillip Young: Ernest Hemingway . Translated by Hans Dietrich Berendt, Diedrichs Verlag, Düsseldorf u. a. 1954, without ISBN, p. 167 f.
  33. ↑ Mélisa Dionne-Michaud: Between staged reality and real dream: role and problems of the narrator in the fantastic prose works by Leo Perutz and Alexander Lernet-Holenia . Université de Montréal, Montreal 2010 ( pdf ) p. 83f.
  34. ↑ Manfred Durzak: The German short story of the present: author portraits - workshop discussions - interpretations. Reclam-Verlag, Stuttgart 1980, ISBN 3-15-010293-6 , p. 175.
  35. ↑ See in detail the information from Rainer Schöwerling: Ambrose Bierce · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. In: Karl Heinz Göller et al. (Ed.): The American short story . August Bagel Verlag, Düsseldorf 1972, ISBN 3-513-02212-3 , pp. 149f.
  36. ↑ An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  37. ↑ La rivière du hibou (1962) . On: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 27, 2013.
  38. ↑ The Twilight Zone "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" (1964) . On: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 27, 2013.
  39. ^ To Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (2005) . On: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 27, 2013.
  40. ^ Owl Creek Bridge (2007) . On: Internet Movie Database . Retrieved October 27, 2013.
  41. ^ An incident at Owl Creek Bridge (2009) . In: Catalog of the German National Library . Retrieved October 27, 2013.
  42. ^ Incident on the Owl River Bridge (2005) . In: Catalog of the German National Library . Retrieved October 27, 2013.