Our destiny is not dependent upon our experiences, but
rather, it is determined by our attitude and perception of those events that we
endure. In An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Peyton Farquhar is so convinced that he
will not die that he fools himself, and us, into thinking that he is as alive
as he ever has been. He thought to himself, amidst the chaos of this twisted
death sentence, “To be hanged and drowned, that is not so bad; but I do not
wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair” (Bierce). And with
this, he is able to take himself on this heroic escape, making us believe that,
with this skewed perception, he simply escapes death. By believing this
extremely vivid and suspenseful lie, we assume that the extravagant details of
his “escape”, like the sand looking like rubies, diamonds and emeralds, are
true. We look past those details, ignoring anything that will prove them to
seem ridiculous or false. We believe this because we want to believe it; we want to be fooled because we want Farquhar
to flee the ominous and eerie setting that we are meant to hate. We get lost in
his fantastically fictional perceptions as if we were escaping with him. Bierce
wrote this for us to feel for Farquhar, and to believe these unrealistic events
that continue to build up until, at last, it cannot be built up anymore.
This is a very well constructed piece. I really relate to the idea that as readers we want to believe in the idea that Peyton is alive. We ignore specific details either purposefully or subconsciously, so that we are satisfied that he actually survived. The “details” or “clues” that indicate Peyton is not alive, we deem impossible. You did an excellent job articulating this concept in your piece. I thought you carefully examined our connection with Peyton and his experience after death, but do you think having a 3rd person omniscient narrator in anyway changes our perception that “Peyton Fooled Us.” Is it actually the narrator who has tactically manipulated and trapped us? Do you believe that the barrier the narrator set up between us and Peyton, in anyway changes our emotions towards Peyton?
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your piece Meg, and your response, Kylie. I can see with my own understanding of the text first hand how I ignored (I would like to believe subconsciously) indicators that Farquhar was actually dead the entire time. I think it is really telling of how willing we are as readers to go along with the protagonist of the story, regardless of how unlikely the circumstances are that arise. As readers, you are completely right, "we believe what we want to believe." It is actually a quite frightening conclusion to come to, and one that should not be ignored itself. As readers we need to be aware of how we read and prevent this ignorance from getting in the way of a deeper understanding and of course, being fooled.
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