Looking back to my initial read of An Occurrence Owl Creek Bridge I realized that I picked up on some pretty small details, but totally missed others. As we spoke about in class the line, “As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were flashed into the doomed man's brain rather than evolved from it” flew right over my head. My eyes read right over it so fast, and even though I had no idea what it meant, I didn’t bother to go over it again. From that you would suspect that I fell for the authors trap, but you’d be wrong. The line that followed gave it away for me, “the sergent stepped aside.” So maybe that’s why I didn’t care what the previous sentence meant?
Don’t get me wrong though, I was not completely onto the author’s tricks. I knew Farquhar was dead but I had no idea why he was telling us more about him. At first, I thought part II was a flashback of the story behind why he was being hanged. As part II went on I found myself more and more confused and second guessing my previous implication that Farquhar was indeed dead. So, being the literary soldier that I am, I continued to read but instead of reading to find the meaning behind the madness, I just plain read with blind hope that the fog would clear by the end of the short story (but mostly because I was too confused to even slightly understand what the hell was going on, one minute he’s dead and another he’s dodging bullets? What?)
To tie my previous paragraphs back to something relevant, my reading experience is just another example of how people perceive things differently. I read the story thinking that Farquhar was dead the whole time past part I and because of that, I still think he was dead and the rest was just plain made up. But that doesn’t mean that if the people who were arguing that part II was his life flashing before his eyes before he died are wrong.
I did the same thing. There were definitely lines I paused at and wondered about while I consciencely missed some important things. I wasn't as keen as you were about finding something fishy.
ReplyDeleteTo some extent, everyone probably misses some details here and there. How that shapes our opinion is some that gets us all.
I like how you led us through your train of thought while reading the story. It made it easier to understand why you had certain views of the story. I do wish that you expanded a smidget about others' opinions being valid and how that works. (Maybe it can be a topic for another time?) However, it is an overall good reflection. I could follow things with ease and understand what was going on in your head. That's the important part, and you did it well.
I have to agree with the idea that you continued to second guess yourself throughout the entire story. I too repeatedly second guessed myself at what the final result and/or final details could be. Especially for the reason that part two was a flashback to before the hanging was taking place at Owl Creek bridge. The escaped is even portrayed so vividly that one could not help but believe even in the slightest that Farquhar really escaped his death.
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