Payton Farquhar example essay topic

Throughout ' "'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' " ' Ambrose Bierce tells not only of humanity" '"s will to survive, but also of the willingness to become greater than, and more powerful than that which is natural. Through the illusion of Payton Farquhar we are shown the natural human desire to become victorious. The Union Army during the American Civil War of the 1860" '"s proceeded to hang a civilian, Farquhar, because of his attempt to aid the Confederate forces. Before Farquhar paid the ultimate price, however, his mind takes him through a heroic escape. Bierce does an excellent job of describing the escape in a dream-like fashion.

He shows the mind" '"s ability to escape reality, and to escape the inevitable. The mind is a powerful source for the human experience. Farquhar knew that his time in warfare would come, ' "'That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in warfare. ' " ' He saw his opportunity when a disguised federal scout tricked him into involvement at Owl Creek Bridge. Farquhar considered no job to humble, so he set off and was captured by the Federal Army. The first sighting of Farquhar" '"s supernatural capabilities came after he closed his eyes to think about his family.

' "'A short distinct, metabolic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith" '"s hammer upon the anvil; ... They hurt his ears like the thrust of a knife... What he heard was the ticking of his watch. ' " ' (Bierce 514). The mind will enhance the senses before death. It will allow aspects of nature to be highlighted and to appear most significant.

As in this case, Farquhar was able to hear a pocket watch tick in his pocket. The sound, he thought, was extremely bothersome and was almost overbearing. Like anyone would do, Farquhar planed his escape at the end of the first section. He thought about freeing his hands, throwing off the noose, and eluding the bullets in order to get home.

We can see from Payton Farquhar" '"s dream that our visions can seem real and life-like when in desperate situations. His journey begins with the ' "'survival' "' of the fall from the bridge. ' "'... he swings through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like vast pendulum, then all at once, with terrible suddenness... The rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. ' " ' (516). As William Collogue writes in ' "'Bierce" '"s An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' " ' ' "'Farquhar hallucinates his own escape. His dream is the portrait of narcotic hallucinations [from the hemp]' "' (37).

One can also deduce that the pendulum swinging for a few seconds in the air might allow Farquhar" '"s mind to divide that time infinitesimally into twenty-four hours of escape that becomes his dream (Stoicheff, 352) Farquhar started his escape; he freed his hands in the water and takes the noose off from around his neck. Bierce alludes to the dream-like nature of the hero when Farquhar congratulates himself on his feat to escape the hemp. ' "' What splendid effort! - What magnificent, what supernatural strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo!' " ' Then he began to swim to ' "'safety,' " ' for his mind.

' "'He was now in full possession of his physical senses' "' (516). This tells the reader that Farquhar is not only concerned for his life, but most importantly that he escaped in a heroic fashion. He gains full possession of his physical senses when the actual body is gone and all he has left is the simple few seconds of his mind. While he was swimming, he looked back and saw men in silhouette against the sun. Yet through the silhouetted black outline, somehow Farquhar could see through the snipers scope and envision that he was gray-eyed. He was able to make the gunman one of the best so that his story was more heroic.

He was able to elude bullets, and the reader gets the feeling that he is in a sort of matrix where he can defy the actual speed of the bullets, therefore giving himself time to dodge them. While he was swimming away, Farquhar said that he could fell the fish swimming under him. This is an impossible feat. He was only able to enhance his senses because he was in his dream world. When he looked out of the water, into the trees he was able to see detail like that of a supernatural being, ' "'He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies' wings, the strokes of the water-spiders' legs, like oars which had lifted their boat -- all these made audible music.

' " ' The human eye is not able to see such things without an aid, such as binoculars. The human ear cannot hear those low sounds either, without aid. Therefore, we can deduce that Farquhar is living in a dream and he is quickly becoming his hearts desire. While Farquhar was running he realized that something was not right about the interminable course, ' "'There was something uncanny in the revelation' "' (518).

One can believe that Farquhar would know the forest around his house, and he would know the streets or patches well enough to realize where he was, but at that moment it was foreign. It was foreign because the world was fake. On his journey, he managed to get tired, ' "'By nightfall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing' "' (518). Although Farquhar was continuing his thirty-mile trek to the safety of his home; the thought of his children and his wife came to mind.

Ironically, this is the same idea that came to him just before he was dropped from the bridge in the first section, this foreshadowing the death of his fantasy. ' "'Overhead, as he looked up through this rift in the wood, shone great garden stars looking unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations' "' (519). He was convinced that the stars were arranged in a different order because of his miraculous escape from the Yankee army. The world is revolving around its hero, and the mind is the first to say that this is the way it should be. Humans what to be the center of everything, and one can notice it by the effort of Farquhar" '"s mind to do exactly that. It is interesting how when Farquhar returns home he remembers his wife as ' "'... looking fresh and cool and sweet,' " ' and as having ' "'... a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace and dignity.

Ah, how beautiful she is!' " ' (519). This contradicts the way she was portrayed at the beginning of the chronological story, where we know her as simply Mrs. Farquhar. She was portrayed as sitting on a rustic bench and lowly enough to fetch water with her white hands. Every good story needs some sort of sex appeal for the main character. Farquhar needed a final touch to his amateur heroic film.

He needed a feminine loveliness and gratification standing before him (Powers 280). Therefore, he had his wife play a part that is not natural. It is only a fantasy of what he believes he should be able to come home to, after being so heroic and eluding the Yankees. Throughout ' "'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,' " ' Ambrose Bierce portraits the dramatic escape of a bonded man and his ability to become victorious in his failure. Payton Farquhar becomes victorious in his mind" '"s attempt to escape the reality that he brought upon himself.

The Union Army during the American Civil War of the 1860" '"s came out victorious in the war. Farquhar came out victorious in his mind while dying for the political ideals that he worked and lived for. Farquhar paid the ultimate sacrifice and lived out his dream of soldier hood because of it. Ambrose Bierce describes the escape in a dream-like fashion where the reader can get a feel of reality in the mist of a vision. We learn from this story that we all have a choice in our lives. We have the ability to perceive ourselves as what we are, and go on living as that person, or we can see who we can be, what we have the imagination to be, and become that, at all costs.

Unless we live our lives where we are capable of living them, we have wasted a life that could have been (mentally of physically). I believe that Payton Farquhar came out victorious in the fact that he fulfilled his desire as a soldier, but he failed because his wife never was able to know what he had accomplished.