gs are noted within the last four paragraphs of the story, just before the end of his life. It seems that death was somehow trying to make itself understood to Peyton.The work is also philosophical in its manipulation of reality. It forces the reader to question what reality is, something that has driven and alluded the minds of great thinkers for eternity. Peyton is far from a realist. He is very much an empiricist. An empiricist derives his knowledge of the world around him by what his senses tell him. Peyton feels as if he is escaping. He creates a fantastical world for himself which is all a result of denial. The entire story is a collection of sensory imagery: "...the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark.......;his neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out of his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish!"(Bierce/The Norton Introduction to Literature pg.83-84).This type of imagery forces the reader to become, at least for duration of the reading, an empiricist. The reader also believes that Peyton is escaping because of what he perceives with his senses. However the reader learns that one cannot trust ones senses all the time.The story also becomes political with its use of satire, caricatures, and archetypes. This is evident in his depiction of the rigidity of the south. "The company faced the bridge, staring stonily, motionless...[they] might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain stood with arms folded, silent, observing the work of his subordinates but making no sign"(p. 81). Farquhar himself becomes an archetype for revolutionary freedom seekers. He embraces the all familiar theme in history to escape oppression. He had an agenda of has own, but it would be unfulfilled, destroyed by the...
