¶ … Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and a Rose for Emily
Both an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and a Rose for Emily deal with the struggle between opposing forces. In Bierce's naturalistic story, the author depicts a struggle between the body and the mind of a dying man. Peyton Farquhar who is about to be hanged at Owl Creek Bridge, dreams in the few minutes before his death, that he escapes from the hands of his pursuers, and that he has a tiring and adventurous journey home. The journey proves to have been only a product of imagination, and at the end of the story, the reader realizes that Peyton had never left the place of his execution. What is actually interesting here is the struggle between his body and his mind: as he loses consciousness, his so-called thoughts are in fact produced by the sensations in his body. Bierce thus shows that the human mind in general is constantly affected by the body and the natural world.
Faulkner's story, a Rose for Emily, also depicts the struggle between two opposing forces, the natural world and the spiritual or moral one. Mrs. Emily is described from the point-of-view of the townspeople as a very haughty person, respected by everyone because of her noble origins. Her refusal to pay taxes as well as all her other whims and peculiarities are accepted by everyone. When she dies however, the same community is shocked as they realize Mrs. Emily had entertained a perverse obsession during her secluded life, and has slept with the dead body of her former lover, whom she had poisoned herself. Thus, the struggle between the woman's desires and the opposing forces is now apparent: she stubbornly holds on to the memory of her father and to the body of her dead lover, unwilling to relinquish her feelings for them.
Thus, the two stories portray the struggle between the natural body and the spiritual side of man, resolving into delirium and pathological states.
Works Cited
Bierce, Ambrose. Collected Works. New York: Oxford, 1977.
Faulkner, William. Collected Stories of William Faulkner. New York: Random House, 1950.
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