Comparison of An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Black Cat
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The short stories An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and The Black Cat have very similar main characters. In both of the stories a major event changes the course of the characters lives, they take risks without completely knowing what their doing or the consequences of them, and they fail to realize that in the end they will have to pay for their crimes.
In the beginning of the stories both of the main characters seem to be good, upstanding citizens. Then after trying to accomplish something, that to them seemed to be the positive thing to do, proved to have nothing but negative consequences for them and the people around them. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge the main character always wanted to be in the military and fight in the Civil War but had to stay home and work on his farm instead. So when a military officer lies to him about a supposed weakness in the enemy's force he decides to be a hero and burn down the Owl Creek Bridge, he got caught and ended up being hanged without even being able to say goodbye to his wife or children. In The Black Cat the main character starts to drink alcohol, and while he is drunk he gets pissed off at his cat and cuts its eye out, but the cat is afraid of him after that so he hangs the cat. Then the man finds another cat just like his old one and brings it home. The new cat always pisses him off also, so he tries to kill it with an ax, but just as he is swinging the ax down his wife tries to stop him and he kills his wife instead.
In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge the main character wants to be a big hero and help out his side in the Civil War, he was under the impression that the Owl Creek Bridge was poorly guarded and he would easily be able to sneak over to the bridge and burn it down...