Suspended Animation In "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce

The story depicts the last moments Peyton Fahrquhar's life during the American Civil Wars. Being "a well to do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family", he was fervently committed to the "Southern cause". Due to some circumstances which are not mentioned in the story, he was hindered from taking part in the war, however he strived like an audacious soldier to satiate his own inner heroic demands. One evening he was visited by a thirsty soldier and while his wife was fetching some water, Peyton inquired the soldier for news from the front. Being a Federal (Nourthern) spy,the soldier had disguised himself as a Confederate (Southern) horseman and ignited the zest in Peyton to meddle with the reconstruction of the Owl Creek Bridge. The repercussion of any sort of tamper would be hanging. The soldier succeeded and Peyton was caught and hanged in an attempt to explode the bridge.Part 1The story is divided into three section, each section with it's own unique narrative techniques. The first part commences with the depiction of "a man", whose name not divulged till the second part,waiting to be hanged. However the picture is not illuminated forthwith, The very first sentence of the story: "a man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below" presents no morbid image in mind but step by step the reader is led to put the pieces of the puzzle together and grasp the fact that the man being described is going to be executed. Also the repetition of " man" instills a military shrillness into the mind while the delineation of the protagonist is outweighed by the depiction of the "sergeant who in civil life might have been a deputy sheriff", the two sentinels "who did not know what was occurring at the center of the bridge" and were "statues to adorn the bridge" or the captain for whom "death is a dignitary". Bierce's obsessions with the brutality of war and it's nugatoriness are inculcated more palpabily in this part of the story, signifying petiness of human beings when a war is fought and also the fact that executing civilians can be a run_of_the_mill routine during the wars. After stirring the reader by such a mockery in tone and the macabre portraying of the man with a rope round his neck, Bierce puts forward the image of the forest and the stream as starkly juxtaposed to the stockade loopholed for rifles,the muzzle of a brass cannon or the company of infantry in line as the spectators of the execution. The soothing effect of the natural imagery is utterly shattered by the metallic and inhuman armor or the soldiers in the line but later in the story such natural imageries will regain their crucial significance and the overwhelming forces of the war and termination will surrender to the power and freedom inculcated by nature.Now having created a vivid picture of the setting that is a bridge located within a forest during the American Civil Wars, Bierce gradually sets aside the social dimensions of the story and casts more light on the protagonist, however with an apparent laconicism and terseness. The fact that he is a gentleman, not a vulgar assassin and is executed according to "liberal military code" is another ironic attack against the absurdity of war. Even the mere procedure through which the execution is carried out, though "simple and effective", culminates to callousness and ruthlessness of the military codes. The uncovered eyes of the convict, a kind of torture impelled upon him by the Federals ironically is a symbolic loophole for him at the excruciating moment of death, allows him to take last glimpse of the world which serve as significant elements throughout the narrative. From this point the trend of the story alters and the reader is taken deep into Peyton's thoughts and introspections and the horrid picture of the hanging is shattered by visual and the auditory imageries that magnify his disturbed state of mind. Of these imageries the swirling water of the stearm represents his perplexed and distraught mind which later by the remembrance of his beloved ones, wife and children, forfeits it's nervous osilliations and turnes out to be be "sluggish stream" and is no more a mad one but "touched to gold by the early sun". In his last moments of life he has acquired a sharper appreciation of his surroundings which could have been without any distinction in his life and the auditory imageries of this part contribute to this notion, the ticking of his watch (symbol of death) heard as "the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil" or the roar of the stream all augment the tension and inevitability of the situationThe first part of the story terminates with his last wish to free himself and last reassurance about his family that they are beyond the invader's reach and the sergeant's stepping aside from the plank serves as a transition between the two parts of the story. The end of the first part could be considered an early suspenseful climax for the story but as we read on the whole climatic features of this part is exhausted though it's abrupt ending and the imageries trigger many anticipations on the reader's. The third person limited point of view which mainly mirrors Peyton's observations demonstrates a proper pliability in description of various elements throughout the story, it becomes detached, denotative, demotive, factual and shrill with short sentences like that of the military discourse. However once coming out of the military zone and reflecting the human realm, it is embellished with descriptive passages, stirring imageries and human impulse, as if easily floating like the stream. The whole story is patterned through the forementioned style of narration and contributes to Bierce's artistic creativity as the writer of macabre and black satire.Therefore the first part ends with presenting a nebulous picture of the protagonist and his origins. The second part of the narrative provides a direct access to his idiosyncrasies and the impetus for his execution.Part 2The second part of the story acts as a direct interposed biography of the main character, whose name as the very first word of this part (Peyton Fahrquhar) obliterates any suspensions and speculations about him. He is an oppulant slave owner, brave enough to devote himself to the "Southern cause" and being instigated by the Federal scout, he broods over destroying the Owl Creek Bridge in order to gain heroic immortality among the other Southerners. Hence the prospects of becoming a hero subjugate his vows to the family, though their reminiscence never ceases haunting his mind and is the only refuge at the moment of death. His children are never described throughout the story and the only facts about his wife are the whiteness of her hands (that symbolizes purity) and her satisfaction with serving the soldiers whish suffice for her momentous role in the story, in other words a full_scale depiction of the family could have ruined the inevitability and pithiness of the narrative for which Bierce is master. Even by some critics he is accused of ruining the whole effect of a story by his impelled conciseness but in this story his style is an overwhelming rejoinder to such critics and the laconic narration adds up to the implacability of Peyton's destiny.The second section of the narrative serves as a flashback between two phases of Peyton's last moment of life that is between falling off the plank and being strangled. In this part the narrator stops the story, relates Peyton's background and then returns to him while hanging from the bridge, hence such cinematic qualities of this story has led to many movie adaptation and t.v series. This shortcut to his life at the moment of death reinforces the fact that death is always shadowed by the desire of returning to life which is utterly magnified in the third part of the story.Part 3This part is utterly dedicated to Peyton's thought and introspections at the moment of departure. After the flashback, the narrator takes the reader back to the bridge where he is awakened by the pain upon his throat and with a feeling of congestion. His power of thought is restored when he hears the splash of the water. The neatly_woven auditory, thermal and visual imageries of this part of the story such as the image of the pendulum, the fire, the light or the sound of the splash and ripples, make any empathy plausible, that is while reading, the reader cannot help identifying with Peyton and seeing himself/herself drowning, struggling, tearing away the noose and all the actions on the part of Peyton. Here the narrator directly puts into words his thoughts in a way that his own presence is totally effaced and the reader feels that Peyton himself is the narrator, even he has a sense of humor when he says:"To be hanged and drowned, that is not so bad" or struggling to release himself he thinks:"What magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo!". His sense of humour is sharply juxtaposed with the appalling image of the hanging.Now coming to the surface of the water, he is bestowed with a new cognizance and appreciation of his surroundings and his "organic system" has become so "exalted and refined". He can see every single leaf of a tree and the insects upon them, flies, spiders and different colors or the humming of the gnats along with other insects sounds like a music for him. Even he can see the grey eye of the markman on the bridge who is trying to shoot him. He has gained a vigor beyond human conditions, he can dodge a volley and is not wounded by the bullets and they just "touch him on the face and hands and continue their descent". Getting released from a vortex, he reaches the Southern bank of the stream. Again he sees the world differently, the gravels are "diamonds, rubies, emeralds", even he notices the symmetrical arrangement of the trees and hears the "wind making in their branches the music of Aeolian harps". Eventually he is touched by the newly_gained epiphany which is accompanied by his love of wife. As walking towards his home during the night, he notices the "strange constellations" and in the climatic part of the story, he finds himself in front of his house in the morning. Rushing to embrace his wife, he is overwhelmed by "darkness and silence" and the story ends with Peyton's body swinging from the bridge.Peyton's whole quest in the last part of the story embodies his last wish to be with his family or in other words the desire of living on. Narrated in four pages, this interior journy did not last more than the time needed for taking the last breath and the breaking of his neck was the resolution and the late climax shatters the reader's expectations of his freedom and redemption. So the setting of the whole story can be concluded from this part, that is on the Owl Creek Bridge and the last moment of Peyton's life and plot is nothing than a brutal hanging. But Bierce surpasses the boundaries of narrative techniques and represents the depth of human experience through not conscious action but unconscious thought. Water as the universally_accepted archetype for the unconscious, brings into light Peyton's unconscious yearnings which are never materialized. So the last part of the story from the point that he is awakened after hanging to the moment that he is veiled by darkness, occurs in his unconscious mind and that is why his experiences in this part are quite vital, vivid and are expressed through a poetic language such as describing Peyton as "fatigued, footsore, famished". This kind of expression is quite apart from the factual and demotic language of the first part. In this newly_defamiliarized world he sees "the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass", he hears the "audible music" of the nature and the other cases which are mentioned in the previous paragraph. However, the ghostly and superhuman features of Peyton such as not being wounded by the bullets, foreshadow the unreliability of the narrator but in the same respect, he provides the reader with some clues to doubt the veracity of the quest, for instance the sense of suffocation or congestion and protruding his tongue because he is thirsty all substantiate the fact that he has not survived the hanging. However, the quest encompasses all microcosmic and macrocosmic features of human life that are not easily reconciled in ordinary organic conditions and such metaphysical experience is only attainable at the moment of death as testified by many other people throughout the world. This metaphysical realm is symbolized by the "untraveled avenue" in the forest which he chooses as a path towards his home, also his domicile symbolizes every human's desire for everlasting salvation. Therefore all the experiences in the last part of the story epitomize each phase of his death. His moment of death is not that of torture, disappointment or ordeal, it is a time for awakening from mundane slumber, for seeing the real world and a time for revelation.The third part with all it's suspense and climatic peculiarities frustrates reader expectations. These expectations were formed by the abrupt ending of the first part which assumes a loophole for Peyton and also the romantic narrative of the last part that to the very end of the story keeps the reader alert and hopeful. Ironically the poetic language of this part contributes more to shatter all the illusions because it takes the reader deeper into the exposed experience, therefore the shock at the end is more devastating and dazzling. The title itself with it's horrid understatement adds up to the coldness of the first and ironic qualities of the last part. Knowledge in army tactics and map reading gained there would aid him in the Civil War, into which he enlisted in 1861, at nineteen years of age. As biographer Richard O'Conner wrote, "War was the making of Bierce as a man and a writer." Surely this cannot be disputed, for it was in the war that Bierce was surrounded by the dead and the dying. From this grim experience Bierce would emerge -- at twenty-three -- a young man with a true understand of death and a destined writer truly capable of transferring the bloody, headless bodies and boar-eaten corpses of the battlefield onto paper (along with other, less gruesome qualities of war). Bierce's war tales are considered by many to be the best writing on war, outranking his contemporary Stephen Crane (author of The Red Badge of Courage) and even Ernest Hemingway. dr seuss cat in hat history