Ambrose Bierce  “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

1)      Near Death Experiences (NDEs)—fact or fancy (reality or imaginary; spiritual or material explanation)

a.       Transcendent—passing through the material or beyond the material/rational/logical five senses approach to reality

2)      Bierce, a skeptic about transcendentalism (Whitman, Emerson, Thoreau—Nature/Oversoul/Spirit transcends the physical world)  Where does Twain fall in?  Skeptical about the transcendentalists

3)      Twilight zone style narrative—what do we believe?  Where are we philosophically?

a)      Section I

a.       Extremely detailed—to focus on realism (realistic setting)—all of this is fiction (ironically)

b.      Detached narrative—physical act of “hanging” the unnamed saboteur—objective (outside point of view)

c.       Key point in story: the hanged man looks down and sees driftwood—the point of view is switching from objective/outside of the characters to subjective/inside: rich subjective world opening up for us

d.       “supernatural” ringing of his last moments—internal clock is running down, preparing him for death—is it his “watch” or not?   Time is subjective not an objective tick-tick-tick.  Who says, “What he heard was the ticking of his watch?”  The hanged man?  The narrator?  Bierce?  Who has the authority to make such a statement and why do we grant it to him/her?

e.      Does mind create/construct reality or reality create mind?  Spiritual or materialist pov?  

f.        His last speech—sets up the rest of the narrative—to show how he imagines it.

g.       Last sentence seems to give the story away—he’s dead—thoughts “instantaneous”—flashed rather than evolved

b)      Section II

a.       Peyton—has a named, a history, he seems “real” now—we can empathize with him

b.      His wife “white hands”—war’s about slavery, wife represents Old South, cult of the White Woman, the epitome of its grace and prestige—she normally doesn’t get her white hands dirty (Ante-bellum period a fanciful dream?)

c.       Why does PH try to blow up bridge?  He wants to be a hero/a soldier, but ironically he knows nothing of the reality of war (another fanciful dream?)

d.      Bierce seems to be suggesting that we do live in our heads (like transcendentalists) but that’s not always a good thing

e.      Last ironic realistic twist: the soldier is a Yankee Scout, not a Confederate—stranger—like Fate itself (he’s like the Rod Serling character)

c)       Section III Find an example of NDE-like event

                a. example from part III that show NDE

                b. even though skeptical, Bierce seems to indicate some measure of subjective                                                reality beyond the mere objective world of the senses

                c. the liminal or border-setting indicates otherworldly passage at btm 365

                d.  what would keep you back or make you return from an NDE? Essay question.

                Demons, family, unfinished business, revenge

                e. bodies of trees in perspective—triangle—animate meeting inanimate

                f. strange mood—mingling of conscious and unconsciousness

                g. hyper-realistic: his imagination come to life (more ideal than real) wife seems

                unreal, more like dream

                h. move into present tense in his dying moment—is it “eternal present”? Then

                move back into the past tense of narration—

i.         How long does it take this guy to die?  Is it a lifetime?  Two seconds?  Or is reality ultimately subjective—even if we don’t fully understand it?

j.        Exercise in phenomenology (how we know something to be real)

Devil’s Dictionary

                Skeptic’s dictionary: love is disease—social construction (“civilized” races—has created the notion of “romantic love”

“War” is necessary of human beings—we can’t handle peace—we are barbarous, just barely out of the woods (evolution, but also a skeptic approach that human nature is inherently flawed)

“Dead” golden goal turns out to be a hole

“Satan”—social construction of Law and human infirmity