Stream (Symbol)
In the story, the image of the stream is one of the most frequently met. Over the stream there is Owl Creek Bridge, a place, where in the time of the Civil War the Northern army caught and hanged white Southern people. One of these people was Peyton Farquhar, the protagonist of the story. He was hanged there but the rope broke and he fell into the stream and it saved his life. The stream symbolizes the life that passes by and never stops. It absorbs you and if you won’t do anything with it, there is a great chance that you will sink. Our hero never stopped trying to move forward and save himself, and, in the end, through pain and suffering – he succeeded.
A gray eye (Allegory)
Here we can observe the allusion to the army of the South during the American Civil War, as well as the color hint. The protagonist says that he noticed that a man, gazing and shooting at him, had grey eyes and he remembered that once he read that grey eyes are the keenest and all famous marksmen had them, which alludes to the hopes that South can win the war. He, as a slave owner, wanted that like anyone else in the affluent South, but even more he wanted to keep his life and the information that his possible killer has grey eyes didn’t cheer him up. But the soldier missed and Peyton Farquhar was still alive – his theory failed, which was a good news for him, by the way.
Self defense (Motif)
Peyton Farquhar was struggling for living. The life gave him a chance to be saved and he wasn’t going to waste it. He desperately tried to swim with the tied hands and dived deep from the bullets of the soldiers. He succeeded, he thought, his life was the main treasure for him at the moment, nothing was more important than that. The motif of self defense is represented by this struggle, it motivates the reader, proving that human powers are beyond any frames and obstacles because if one has an aim, the one will do everything possible and impossible in order to achieve it.
Death (Symbol)
The image of death is not depicted in detail; it is rather a background of the following events in the story yet it is an important part of the narration as it symbolizes the end in all its meaning – he is the end of life, the end of a person, the end of the story, the end of the war. Death is treated with respect – soldiers who face it every day, and it seems that they used to see it, keep silence in front of death, they don’t even dare to move, when it is close. Death is a way out: it was a way out for the protagonist from his sufferings and pain, and it is a kind of relief.
