Comments by
Mimi Antonecchia
I really liked the pull-back technique that the camera uses as well because it calls our attention to the setting. It also creates a great transition from the tranquility of peace he feels once he gets a ways down the river and him beginning to run. It made the shot really smooth .
I think it is ironic how the music in this section cuts out with “Living Man” because this section of the film is while Peyton is in the dream so he is not really going to be a living man.
The camera man in this section uses a “cut” technique in this section. It goes from Peyton’s point of view to an observer point of view. This heightens the intensity of the scene as he is trying to escape.
I agree that the focusing in on nature in this scene is the most important part in this scene. It shows that he now sees life in a new light, which is represented by the amount of light on the objects in nature. The camera focusing I also think represents this idea because each objects goes from blurry to sharply clear. This also gives it a dream like quality…. which could foreshadow that it is.
I wonder if the sound in the scene is from the women’s perspective because you can only hear Peyton’s heavy breathing when he nears the women. This would not apply to the sounds that occurs in the scene of his actual death because she is not present. Does anyone else have any ideas?
When the camera is from Peyton’s perspective I think it is interesting that the soldiers are in more of a low-key lighting than when the camera is actually showing Peyton’s face. This was used to emphasize how Peyton viewed the other soldiers. I also found it interesting that the scene is so dreary, but you still can hear birds chirping in the background of the scene.
I think it is interesting that the soldier made him fall into the trap when he could have just killed him at this moment. Was this to show the north’s superiority?
I wonder if the name of the bridge has any significance. This is a stretch, but it kind of provides irony in the story. Owls are known for being wise and Peyton was not using his senses when he fell into the trap of the soldier.
I definitely missed this line too! The soldier put up a really good front though, he even bowed to Peyton and that is known as a sign of respect.
The phrase “in a moment the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the pivotal point” is not what I would think would be Peyton’s first reaction. This makes since since he was probably light headed after not getting oxygen for an excessive amount of time, but due to adrenaline I would think the world would be circling at a rapid rate!
The fact that Peyton could not serve the south in the fall of Corinth made him yearn to aid the cause in anyway possible. I believe that later on this is what clouded his view from using his common sense to realize that the soldier was a Yankee. His demise was he was to eager to jump at any opportunity that presented itself.
I love the way that Ambrose sets the scene in his dream as white and bright, using phrases like “bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine” and “his wife looking fresh and cool and sweet” and then shocks the reader with Peyton’s sudden sight of darkness. The light and dark references really amplifies the surprise in the last paragraph of the story.
The diction that the author uses is also what makes this paragraph so exciting. The words like “pounced”, “tore”, “direst pang”, “engulfed” and “agony” are all extremes. It makes the reader feel the adrenaline rush that Peyton gets when he realizes that he has a second chance at life!
This wakening from his dream, in his dream, could be foreshadowing what is about to happen next.
In military parlance a volley is a simultaneous discharge of weapons. Although a spear would be a good explanation for what the weapon was, to describe the release of the weapon he heard “the dull thunder”. The release of a spear does not make noise.
I found it interesting that Andros picked the color gray for the soldiers eyes. It seems to be the color of choice for Andros because in the previous section he also said the “gray-clad soldier”. I wonder if the actual color was symbolic of the difference between the two opposing sides. Due to the color being associated to dreariness, it might have also represented a soldiers sight that was colored this way because of all that he had seen by the war.
The capitalization of “DIMINUENDO” I think is very interesting as well because the sound of the cannon ball is going away and decreasing, but the capitalization implies that it is something loud and bold. Maybe it is used to show Peyton’s excitement and shock that it didn’t hit him. I also think that it is interesting that he refers to the situation a “the game”. That just doesn’t seem to be the right word. I’m sure that it probably has some meaning, I am just not sure what it is?
I think that Farquhar assumes that the “Confederate” soldier just didn’t think of burning down the bridge. I think that Farquhar wanted to serve his army and be a hero so bad that this might have clouded his sense of reasoning. Otherwise, I agree that he should have been able to see that it was a trap.
In this short story, I was most impressed by the way Ambrose is able to describe the moments before death through Peyton. I’m sure that his experiences and facing death every time he walked onto the battle field made him experience these same events. That explains why he knew what would go through a persons mind and the effect the anticipation of death has on a person’s five senses.
The author uses similes in this paragraph to put the reader into the scene. This is seen with “metallic percussion like the stroke of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil” and “hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife”. His use of this poetic device makes the reader more aware of Peyton’s feelings during this time right before his death.
I agree that this is definitely foreshadowing a trap for Peyton. I think that it is also ironic in this sense because she is being a slave to a Union army member, someone that is about to kill her husband, and the Union member was fighting to free the African American slaves.
“A frock coat is a man’s coat characterised by knee-length skirts all around the base, unlike the tail coat and the morning coat. The frock coat is fitted, long-sleeved, of knee-length, with a collar and lapels (revers), a centre vent, and a waist seam for optimal waist suppression.” This is the definition that Wikipedia gave on a frock coat because I had no idea what that was. I think that it shows his upper class status and kind of sets the time period because this kind of coat was normally seen around the nineteenth century.
Peyton Farquhar can be taken two ways, as a hero because he was fighting for his beliefs or selfish because he wants to make a difference and risks leaving his family to be a hero. The comment he makes can foreshadow his selfishness in leaving his family because he puts his thoughts about his own escape before the safety of his family.
In this first paragraph the thing that stood out most to me was the reference to the number two. First, “the swift water twenty feet below” and twenty is a multiple of two and the “two private soldiers of the Federal army”. Then in the final sentence, “… to be the duty of these two men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.” I think that this was to emphasize the two sides in the war.