September 10

Rules for Posting:

• Appropriate language (semi-formal)
• No abbreviations
• Correct punctuation
• Try not to repeat what has already been said
• Length- depending on the situation (up to you)

Homework:

Finish your senior term paper books. Read 1.1 of Hamlet. Go on to wikispaces and create yourself an account. Copy the wikispaces link and email it to mcoffey@spsfg.org.

"An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge"

• Seemed like it was "too good to be true"
• Dodged all the bullets and the canon
• Setting: Civil War

Part I

• Day 2
• Being hung --> VERY descriptive
• Kind of counting down the seconds to Farquhar's death
• Ambrose Bierce is very concrete/ absolute until he starts talking about the stream (contradicting)
• Paragraph 5 is very liminal
• Water running, fast and slow
• Ticking of the clock, loud and soft
• The end of part I, when the sergeant steps aside = absolute

Part II

• Day 1
• Peyton Farquhar is a Southerner/ Confederate
• Federal Scout is laying a trap for Farquhar

Part III

• Several ways of interpreting this part
• If we believe Peyton's story, a day and a night have passed
• Seconds have only actually passed

One

• Process of dying: "as one already dead"
• The whole time he's escaping his neck in burning, and his brain is on fire (process of dying)
• When he's spinning like a top in the river, he's actually spinning like that in real life after being hung.
• When he arrives at the doorway is like him coming home
• Arriving into the house of light- life flashing before your eyes

Two

• It could be a dream
• Not conscious/ dream: falls asleep while walking
• Compressing time like in a dream
• Hears conversations in his mind
• Hears soldiers are taking about him and then reloading their guns

Is Time Absolute?

• Experienced time vs Imagined time
• Time can fly or time can drag on

Keep in mind how you use words to express the idea of ambiguity or absoluteness.