The opening of Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge hooks the reader from the very beginning by providing the opening scene with a man about to be hung. What is so captivating bout this is that we do not know the reasoning behind his execution. This leaves the reader wondering many things such as why he is being hung, or how the people witnessing the execution feel towards him. The point of view in which this story is told, which is third person objective, plays a vital role in this. The first few paragraphs the narrator does not tell us anything about the man or why he is being hung. The lack of information creates immense suspense which is important to the overall story.
There is an important switch just before part II in which the narrator tells us about the man being hung. This vital switch gives us over to a third person limited point of view in which we are given information only from the man being hung’s head. The break in part II which drifts away from information about the setting builds suspense further as we find out about the man’s family. The reader finds themselves, however, still wanting to know exactly why this man is being hung. The author obviously planned this out so that the reader is led through the story always wanting to know more.
This specific format was used to give great power to the very last sentence in which it is revealed that the escape we all thought possible did not actually occur. This small fact changes the entire view of this story and how a reader feels about it. The importance of the end of this story comes from the fact that any old explanation about an execution of a criminal is not very exciting. Bierce is able to make us believe that this story of a man being hung is actually much more fascinating then it is in reality.
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