“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce centers on Peyton Farquhar, a southern farmer about to be hanged by the Union army for attempting to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl Creek. As he stands with the noose around his neck, Farquhar imagines that the rope breaks and he escapes. At the end…
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge: Themes
Ambrose Bierce’s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is the story of Peyton Farquhar, a Southern farmer who is about to be hanged by the Union army for trying to destroy the railroad bridge at Owl Creek. While the reader is led to believe he escapes under miraculous circumstances, it is revealed at the end…
An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge: Summary
In this short story by Ambrose Bierce, upon a railroad bridge in Alabama, a man is waiting to be hanged. His hands are tied behind his back, and a rope encircles his neck. He stands upon a platform constructed of loose boards. Members of the Federal Army—the Union Army during the Civil War—are also on…
The Colour Of Pomegranates (1969) – Summary & Analysis
Summary: At the narrative centre of Paradjanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian poet-troubadour Arutin Sayadan (1712– 1795), known as Sayat-Nova, or The King of Song. The film traces different events in Arutin’s life, from earlier years till his death. Paradjanov structures his film as a set of narrative tableaux that…
Nosferatu (1922): Summary & Analysis
Summary: In the town of Wisborg, a demented estate agent called Knock sends his employee Hutter to a remote Balkan castle on a mission to sell a vacant property opposite Hutter’s house to the mysterious Count Orlok. In an inn, a book titled Nosferatu that warns of supernatural perils is left for Hutter by an…
Black Girl (1966 Movie) – Summary, Analysis
Summary: A young black woman in newly independent Senegal accompanies her employers to France to work as a governess. She imagines she will enjoy the comforts of bourgeois French society. Instead, she discovers her second-class status as an exotic outsider, leading to a crisis of identity and, ultimately, suicide. Analysis: Black Girl (La Noire de…
The Insect Woman – Summary, Analysis
Summary: Born in 1918, Tome is the daughter of an economically poor, dysfunctional family in early twentieth-century rural Japan. While working as a servant to the owners of the land her family tends, Tome is raped by the landlord’s son and falls pregnant. After the war has ended, leaving the child behind in the care…
Night Of The Living Dead (1968): Summary, Analysis
Summary: When the recently deceased begin to rise from the dead to feast upon the flesh of the living, a small group of embattled survivors attempt to stave off destruction by taking refuge in an abandoned western Pennsylvania farmhouse. They face the ghoulish threat of the living dead from without, but also increasing tension from…
My Life Without Me – Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: In My Life Without Me, Catalan director Isabel Coixet offers the story of a young woman’s diagnosis of terminal cancer. Ann (Polley) spares her family and friends the knowledge of her illness. As she is dying, she experiences a sensual awakening and transforms the lives of those around her. Analysis: My Life Without Me,…
The Headless Woman – Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: While Verónica, a white, provincial middle-class dentist, is driving along a rural road, she hits something or someone, a dog or a dark-skinned child – neither she nor the viewer can be sure – but doesn’t stop to find out what it is. In the days following the accident, she is confused and emotionally…