Farquhar's Death

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Recommended: The theme of death in literature

Bierce had an almost obsession with violent deaths with no possible escapes as topics for his stories. To illustrate Farquhar's death he wanted a structure that could be psychologically similar to death. For this he chose the most familiar one to him at the time, a dream structure. To make this structure more realistic, Bierce wove external stimuli that Farquhar was experiencing into the dream. To further this illusion the second section of the story is used as a flashback to make it seem even more true. This flashback also helps to show how altered time becomes during the hanging. It initially begins when the plank is removed. Some hanging victims die immediately while others struggle for several seconds (Stoicheff 349), so we do not know

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