Early on in the story, the narrative sets up the contrasting images of the lone individual against a group of soldiers. While the individual is passive, as he must be, being bound, the soldiers are busy and efficient. Yet, they are described in curiously static terms, with the sentinels carrying their rifles in “the position known as support,’ that is to say, vertical in front of the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight across the chest—a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect carriage of the body.”. The chief executioners, the sergeant and the captain, are interchangeable, swapping positions to carry out the hanging. The soldiers at the ends of the bridge do not know what those in the center are doing. The picture that emerges is of a mechanical army, the soldiers unaware of the larger context of their actions, behaving altogether as cogs in a machine.

The narrator observes with irony that the situation is so colorless because “silence and fixity” are ideals in the military. The silence and fixity aren’t just restricted to the situation at hand; the narrator refers to the larger wartime code of silencing the truth and rigidly adhering to one’s position. Soldiers need to harbor these notions, because if they don’t, they would see through the brutal reality of the military enterprise. In the story’s moral universe, war is futile, destructive, and violent.

This idea is further enhanced by the way the narrative juxtaposes Peyton’s detailed final thoughts with the brief final twist of the story, which reveals that Peyton has in fact been hanged to death. The ending is not merely present for shock value, as some critics have argued; rather, the terse ending is a deliberate and meaningful commentary on the nature of war. Peyton has romanticized war to the degree that he wants to prove himself as a man and a soldier even at the cost of risking his life. In his last moments, he tries to romanticize dying. But the truth is that there is no romance in war. War leads to swift and mundane death. The idea of the empty violence of war is heightened by the description of the soldiers firing indiscriminately at Peyton, even firing a cannon at him. In his reverie, Peyton begins to realize the real nature of war.