Townie Spies

I thought of the first day of class while reading this short story, particularly when Professor Schwartz came into class and after a few minutes of presenting asked why we should believe she is who she says she was. As a student, I had never thought of this concept before. Why would some random woman pretend to be our professor? But because I have never even considered this idea, it was that much more powerful. Professor Schwartz explained how we have been conditioned to trust authority our whole lives and how we believe what we want to believe. I wanted to believe she was my teacher because that would be normal. If a stranger came into our classroom and pretended to be our professor, I would have a hard time trusting professors on the first day of each semester for the rest of my academic career. The emotional toll of not being able to trust what I am supposed to be learning from professionals would hinder my ability to grow as a student. Professor Schwartz provided this exercise, not to have us distrust professors, but to have us open our minds to different sides of the story. Maybe as we get older a new form of learning needs to substitute the conventional type of “whatever the professor says is what is absolutely right”. Perhaps an educative style in which professors display all of the information, both sides of an argument, and all angles of an experiment and let us determine which is “correct”.

Getting back to the story, why would Peyton believe that the man asking for water was a confederate soldier without any additional information? Peyton Farquhar craves joining the war. After “circumstances of an imperious nature” (Bierce, II) prevent him from joining his Southern brothers in battle, he becomes desperate to help in any way possible. Thus, when a disguised scout from the North comes and warns of an impending advance of the Yankees, Peyton decides to try to ward them off himself by damaging the railroads, which they would use to attack. Why should Peyton trust this man? For all he knows, the “confederate soldier” could have been a townie from Clinton, NY. Peyton believed this man because he wanted, more than anything, to help the South. Desire is a very powerful force, and in this case, it led to Peyton’s death.