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   mshurn Teacher
   College - Freshman

   eNotes Editor

   There are two hints in Part I of the story that Peyton's mind is playing tricks on him seconds before he dies. Standing on the bridge, his hands tied and the rope around his neck, Peyton looks down into the waters of Owl Creek "racing madly beneath his feet." He fixes his attention on a piece of driftwood moving downstream with the swift current. Peyton's perception is distorted, however, because the driftwood appears to him to be moving very slowly: "What a sluggish stream!" It is not a sluggish stream, as we were just told.

   The second hint that Peyton is not thinking rationally follows quickly. As he waits to die, Peyton "became conscious of a new disturbance." He hears a strange sound he can't identify:

   . . . a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith's hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing quality . . . . Its recurrence was regular, but as slow as the tolling of a death knell.

   As Peyton continues to listen, the sounds grow "in strength and sharpness" until he barely can endure them: "They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife . . . ." Peyton is listening to the sound of his own watch ticking. These two examples of Peyton's distorted mental processes serve as hints that we cannot trust his perceptions of reality. The rope breaks only in his terrified mind.

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   Posted by mshurn on Wednesday March 18, 2009 at 12:55 AM