Altered States Of Mind In Realism And Postmodern Literature
Though set 74 years apart in publication, Ambrose Bierce’s realist classic “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” is updated with John Cheever’s “The Swimmer,” adding a postmodern feel onto the subject of internalized and idealized heroism. Both Bierce and Cheever use water as a major symbolic effect on the main characters; their time in the water is what transition them to their trance-like state that grows more noticeable to the reader the longer the main characters fail to realize their compromised mindset.
At times, it becomes apparent that the experiences the main characters encounter may be warped by their inability to process what is real and what is fake, and therefore may make the reader question the sanity and reliability of the characters. Though their endings are incredibly different, as Cheever’s is ambiguous while Bierce’s ends with death and a concrete resolution, the two author’s manage to retain similar effects in creating an almost dream-like state for both characters- heroes in their own minds if in no others’- to exist in. In both stories, the conflict is a direct result of the main characters’ actions, leaving the rest of the plot to revolve around the main characters’ hindrance by their trances and making them unable to fully resolve the conflict due to their compromised state of mind.
In both “Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Swimmer,” the main character makes an incredible leap into water and gets farther from where the story began than anyone believed possible.
In “Owl Creek Bridge,” though Peyton Farquhar’s fall into the water was unintentional, it still stood as a transition to a dream-like state of mind as the rope hanging him snapped to drop him into the creek below. In the story, the illusion that Farquhar experiences and reality exist side by side, leaving the reader unaware that anything is wrong until the end. In “The Swimmer,” Neddy uses the water as an escape from the inescapable passage of time, choosing to literally immerse himself into the water and drown out everything happening around him.
Cheever uses the water as Neddy’s ignorance to reality, but his delusions continue even when he isn’t immersed in it. Learning to accept the movement of time, even feeling as though he feels it may be leaving him behind, is Neddy’s main conflict throughout the entire story. When “misfortunes” are brought up to Neddy by Mrs. Halloran, he doesn’t understand what she is talking about as he managed to float through life and ignore what had happened around him in fear of the ups and downs of life. His decision to swim in the many pools around his neighborhood adds to the idea of him drowning out the world around him, unknowingly missing major events in the lives of those around him, from the Welcher’s selling their house to his own home being empty.
The ambiguity of the ending to the story, as Neddy was locked out of what was once his own home and found it completely empty, leads to the reader’s questioning of whether Neddy’s mental state was affected by his frequent drinking and belief that only a day had passed, when the reader could understand that time had passed far more rapidly.
The significance of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” having been written in the antebellum period following the Civil War, holds a parallel to “The Swimmer” in the influence of water on the main character. While it’s apparent by the end that Peyton Farquhar was dead- while the reader was led to believe he had fallen into the water and been given the chance to escape- his delusion actually began in the creek as he started to run from the men hanging him. As stated previously, reality and delusion are intertwined in “Owl Creek Bridge;” in the face of death, Farquhar essentially slipped out of his own body, therefore distorting the passage of time.
In his case, time is as fluid as the water he falls into, giving him the chance to escape into his own mind in order to create a more comforting vision of finding his family rather than coming to terms with his untimely death.
The flow of his execution was interrupted by his sudden delusion and denial that he couldn’t be dead. When he hit the water, “the power of thought was restored,” ironically suggesting that in his illusion he was fully aware of his environment.
Yet another striking similarity between “Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Swimmer” the declining physical state of each main character. In the case of “Owl Creek Bridge,” Farquhar was an Alabama man deeply devoted to the Southern cause in the Civil War, yet had been unable to serve in the Confederate military. Instead, he believed a disguised Northern scout who suggested he could play a hero’s role at Owl Creek Bridge, where the Yankees were beginning to gather. Upon hearing this and believing in his duty to the Confederacy, Farquhar went to try and stop the advancements of the Union even though it was a trap. Perhaps as a ploy to show he was an honorable man, despite his lack of direct involvement in the war due to his growing age and increasing weakness, this rashness led to his eventual mental break and death.
As for “The Swimmer,” it can be noticed by the reader that time was passing rapidly in Neddy’s world, but he was the only one who failed to realize it. As he traveled from house to house, the seasons began to shift from summer to fall, even possibly to early winter. Notably, the shift in the seasons is notated by the rain- the only source of water that Neddy manages to avoid- as an example of his lack of awareness for time. When he finally reached his mistress’s house and she denies his request for a drink, choosing instead to return inside to the person keeping her company, Neddy jumped in the pool for a swim, but when he got out, “he found that the strength in his arms and shoulders had gone” and that the person keeping Shirley company was a young man- a man obviously younger than Neddy. This sharp comparison, as Neddy found himself vulnerable and weak in his failure to see time’s effect on his life, feels like a slap in the face and leaves Neddy emotional, forcing him to come to terms with how time had seemingly passed without him.
In each story, the narrative styles are major factors in handling of the rapid passage of time. Both Ambrose Bierce and John Cheever use the third person to get a distant view from the characters, allowing the reader to see the environments that acted as tells for their altered states of mind. In “Owl Creek Bridge,” Farquhar notices a piece of “driftwood” that makes its way down the creek, accurately representing him and his desire for freedom as he hung from the bridge. As it was his plan to set fire to the driftwood near the bridge in order to drive away the Yankees, the presence of driftwood, being noticed from such a distant narrative, shows the connection of nature to Farquhar’s demise. It’s almost as if he transported his own consciousness into the driftwood itself in order to block out the pain of his death and used the setting around him in order to say his final goodbyes to the world, finally understanding how foolish his desire to be heroic to no end truly was.
In “The Swimmer,” the same can be said in regard to narrative distance; Cheever manages to display the entire world moving around Neddy as he transitions from house to house, blissfully unaware of how much the world could change without him. Neddy can even, at one point, smell “wood smoke,” and even though the leaves around him “were falling down,” Neddy wonders, “who would be burning wood at that time of year. ” Though the reader knew, thanks to Cheever’s description, that it was no longer the same season Neddy believed it to be, Neddy still was under the watery delusion that summer still raged on.
The harsh reality of returning home after his mistress’ rejection, finding her with a younger and more attractive man, was his wake-up call to realizing that he had pushed away everyone around him for the sake of his own ignorance, but once his delusion caught up to him, the weight of the world that had moved on without him appeared overwhelming, leaving him without a home to go to. Along with the use of third person in the stories allowed for a greater perspective on how time passed and managed to leave both men behind, even if they didn’t want it to be so.
Through a mix of mix of realism and un-real elements, John Cheever and Ambrose Bierce managed to write striking commentaries on the vitality of living without delusion. By creating such normal, uneventful characters and placing them in a believable situation (a well-executed example of verisimilitude), both authors were able to create a story based in elements of realism, though Cheever’s was done through a postmodern lens. Their use of small details to build a living and breathing world- almost more alive than the main characters themselves- as well as the omniscient narration created a believable situation that dropped two disillusioned characters into their dream-like state.
The blending of un-real elements into the story, such as Farquhar’s ability to see the “gray eye” of the “marksman through the rifle sights” or Neddy’s desire for alcohol to dull the harsh emotional place he was forced into by his delusion add to the sense of realism, though the details make the stories feverish until they end. The trance that both main characters fall into as a result of their desire to drown out reality is directly reflected by the techniques of realism displayed by the authors.
The similarities between “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Swimmer” are numerous; their use of symbolism and motifs to build a character’s separate falsified reality may be recognized as commentaries on the dangers of illusion as well as classic and postmodern examples of realism. In both stories, the main characters are hindered by their own actions, and their trances revolve around their own personal heroism, leaving them unable to unable to fully resolve the conflict based on their fixations with what is not real.
