Execution
The story begins with the description of the scene of execution: “A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man's hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely encircled his neck.” Beside him there stayed his executors - soldiers of the federal army. The narrator doesn’t tell who the man is and what has he done and why he is going to be executed. The intrigue rises. The image of the execution from the very first words of the story takes the reader into the story, increases the interest in the following events of the narration.
Railroad
The railroad is the place, where everything begins – a man stands upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, waiting for execution. It is a deserted place, a distant one, where no one could prevent the execution – the railroad run straight away into the forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was lost to view. The nature of the place was magnificent – “a gentle slope topped with a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon commanding the bridge”. The image transfers the atmosphere of the place of execution, it reflects the mood of the nature and the mood of the human who is close to his death.
Sluggish stream
Waiting for his death, the man was using his last chance to look at the world he is about to leave as his face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged like it used to be in that times. He looked at the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move, - he thought. And, in a moment, the racing stream wasn’t so fast anymore, it was sluggish. Why? maybe, because in front of death everything slows down and the last seconds of life are the longest one. The image transfers the feelings and thoughts of the man who is about to die.
A feeling of fullness
When Peyton Farquhar fell through the bridge, he lost his consciousness and being awake, he couldn’t understand what had happened to him and if he is still alive or dead. The feeling of suffocation didn’t left him, but now it was accompanied with the range of other feelings. “he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness – of congestion”. He felt pulsating pain in his neck and head. The intellectual art of his nature was already effaced, he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. The image is used for the depiction of the mental and physical state of the protagonist after his mystical rescue.
