A hurtful reality

793 Words4 Pages
A dream is just an illusion of reality. It is a deceptive appearance of a sometimes hurtful truth. By dreaming we can distort the world we live in, promoting our wants and changing events in our advantage but this remains just as a thought in our minds where outside of this bubble there is a totally different situation. Peyton Farquar in “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce is quite an ideal character who portrays this idea. Peyton Farquhar’s dream clearly distorts the reality of his position. Peyton Farquar is a planter of a respected Alabama family he was bonded to the southern cause being a slave owner himself. One evening Farquhar and his wife are seated on a bench near his lands, a soldier asks for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar with joy serves him the water. The soldier chats with the Farquhar’s and mentions a stockade on Owl Creek Bridge, he concludes by stating that there was a large quantity of driftwood and could easily be burned down. Mr. Farquhar was ardently devoted to the Southern cause but because of unknown circumstances he was prevented from serving as a soldier. That did not stop him from providing aid, he did what he could. He was a civilian with the heart of a soldier. The story skips from here suddenly Mr. Farquhar is falling from the bridge indicating that he did try to burn the wood and was captured and being hung. As falling to the stream the rope breaks and he is submerged into the stream. Peyton in a series of events that occur in his dream modifies the truth into his own convenience. Bierce does not indicate that Peyton is actually dreaming he rather continues narrating it as a truthful event. In the story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," the protagonist is in a situation which is almost illogical, he is being hung but miraculously he evades the action, “He knew the rope had broken and he had fallen
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