"Farquhar dived—dived as deeply as he could. The water roared in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dull thunder of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.
As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther downstream—nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and ineffectually."
Chapter 3
I want everyone to think about possible hints Bierce gives us in this passage that COULD prepare us for the ending IF we are paying attention!
In this passage, we are plunged into Bierce's description of Farquhar's initial escape - was he saved by the breaking of the noose & the plunge underneath the water? - And now we see a plunge beneath the water saving him once again. Farquhar seems to miraculously evade death over & over again. He escapes harm from bullets in this passage & later manages to escape cannon fire, which seems rather unrealistic to me. WHAT DO YOU THINK?
Did anyone notice that the speed of the bullets slows and that the shape of the metal changes? The bullets are now flattened. Instead of hitting Farquhar with force, the bullets seem to be almost a soft caress. Are these clues for the discerning reader? Are these things describing more distortions of Farquhar's reality?
It IS true that the speed of a bullet slows when hitting water because water is more dense than air. Did you know that a replica Civil War rifle fired into water is fatal at a depth of 2 feet but not at 5 feet? How deep did Farquhar supposedly dive? We don't know, but it seems to me the description of the bullets could be one more hint that Farquhar is living a fantasy rather than experiencing reality at this point.
What I saw as hints to the ending was how Peyton saw all the colors so much more vividly, how he could see the bugs and the veins on tree leaves at the side of the creek, and the way he could hear the fish slipping past him through the water. Those things really hinted to me that something supernatural was happening and that he could not be alive and experiencing all that as a human being here on earth.
ReplyDeleteAlso bullets tend to ricochet off water so the part of bullets shooting down near Peyton seems farfetched.
I did find the passage of the 'slow motion' flattened bullets very peculiar and I would have stopped and reread that passage at least 5 times before scratching my head and moving on, had I not been listening to an audio reader who was apparently not as interested as I was. ;)
ReplyDeleteLOL :D
DeleteWow Hannah, I am really impressed that you put together that he wasn't really alive! I knew something bad was going to happen, but the end still threw me through a loop.
ReplyDeleteMrs. Jones, I did notice all of the strange oddities and unrealistic tidbits, but I have been conditioned by many strange (or perturbed) authors, mostly Edgar Allen Poe, to stop believing that short stories will follow any sort of comprehensive bounds. ;) When I come across passages like this sometimes I just bite my tongue and wait to see what this crazy author is going to do with this story!
Bierce is very Poe-like & some scholars feel he was very much influenced by Poe. Good comparison!
DeleteI agree with your observations. They do seem to be clues about his distorted reality. I was trying to figure out how the bullets could possibly become flattened. I didn't think surface tension was quite that powerful!
ReplyDeleteWhat was the 1st strange thing everyone noticed? The 1st time you thought, "Hmmmmm....What is going on here." I'm trying to remember back to when I 1st read this story. I think it may have been the description of the different constellations.
ReplyDeleteWell, I thought the whole book was a little strange, but I attributed most of it too his fresh perspective on life after having such a close brush with death. That didn't explain the flattened bullets, but the jury was out on those ;). When they started talking about whispers in an unknown language, I decided something extra weird was up.
ReplyDeleteI agree it is unrealistic that he was able to dodge all of those bullets. His mind was going a little crazy though at that point so I don't know if he could've helped it.
ReplyDeleteAlso I'm so sorry I didn't comment sooner. I thought I had at least commented once on time. But I apparently didn't:(
ReplyDeleteYou are just fine!
Delete