Point of view in all types of stories convey the author's attitude, his way of showing the reader what he wants us to think, what he wants us to know. Peyton Farqhar, the main character in "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce, distorts the story, actually beginning the narration after his catch and in the last phase of his execution; this warp of time and settings actually develops the outcome of the story.
"It is now dry and would burn like tow." As Peyton flashes back to his time before his "execution," time is changed, changed to where the reader does not know if he is alive or dead, hallucinating or truly there. Sitting on his front porch, serving a charitable glass of water to a traveling scout, Peyton asks the question which, inevitably, determines his fate. "Suppose a man- a civilian and student of hanging- should elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel," said Farquhar, smiling, "what could he accomplish?" This sporadic remembrance of his time before his capture enables the reader to see his inner workings and the act which would lead to his future detainment. However, jumping back, falling "straight downward through the bridge," Peyton is now, once again, eluding the reader, leading them to believe he is free. Nevertheless, he is not. Leaping from one time frame to another, Bierce dodges a set time border. As Peyton stand there on that short wooden plank, time seems to slow, to dawdle. He comments on how slow the "sluggish stream" is moving, how "the world seemed to wheel slowly around, himself the pivotal point" as he rushes down the river. Time sets the story. Time is the pivotal point, the peak which all other attributes gyrate towards, the leader of the group.
Whether on the farm or envisioning the "prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass," Bierce instills the help of settings to contribute, somehow, to the conclusion of the story.
