Owl_Creek_Bridge

In both stories, The Cask of Amontillado and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, there is a character who takes deadly actions for a greater good according to what he thought. Montresor from The Cask of Amontillado, killed Fortunato, and Peyton Farquhar, from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, supposedly escaped execution. To the readers, it may seem like nothing more than just dangerous actions that took place, but there is more depth in both protagonists’ actions that we can only see if we read between the lines. Both characters’ motivations have shaped the story into becoming both similar and different from one another. In the Cask of Amontillado, Montresor’s fantastic life and family was taken away from him by Fortunato, the town’s most beloved superior man. Because of Montresor’s loss, he had lost his enormous social stature. But unlike any other men, Montresor refused to accept being inferior to Fortunato and decided to take extreme actions to reclaim his life in a sense and take avenge of his family’s name. With his motivation, he didn’t just decide to kill Fortunato quickly. He took his time to plan out his revenge perfectly. From gaining Fortunato’s trust, to the actual death, it was planned out carefully. With all the irony that took place such as when Fortunato was coughing so much and said he wouldn’t die from a cough and Montresor said “True—true”, the shift in power became inevitable. “We will go back, your health is precious. You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was. You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter. We will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible.” (Montresor, 5). Fortunato’s faith was in Montresor’s hands. All this time, Fortunato believed that he was smarter, superior, more deserving of the best, but in reality, Montresor had the upper hand. Even before Fortunato became a corpse, Montresor was already becoming superior. Because every step they took deeper into the catacombs were another step up the social ladder for Montresor and a step down for Fortunato. The story wasn’t only about death. It was about justice and how no evil goes unjust. Speaking of justice, Peyton Farquhar from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge was being executed for sabotaging the bridge. Supposedly, it was just to kill him. But unlike Montresor who had death on his mind, Farquhar had life in his. Farquhar’s execution was interrupted by his dream of escaping. His dream was about life and how it had a greater meaning. “He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were, indeed, preternaturally keen and alert. Something in the awful disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that they made record of things never before perceived.” (Bierce, 17). For a man who was facing death just a moment ago, he never felt more alive than when he was dreaming. But when he dreamt about hugging his wife, he quickly came back to reality and died. Everything was over. With his motivation, came a new meaning of life. All his daydreaming took place in a matter of seconds in his mind before he dies. If he wasn’t placed in death row, living wouldn’t stand out like it did in his daydream. And that’s what his motivation is saying about the whole aspect of the story. You don’t know what you have until it’s gone and in Farquhar’s case, in a matter of seconds, his mind reflected on life and his family instead of anything else. The story wasn’t only about execution, but about existence. In both stories, both characters had a motivation and different approach to their motivations. And although their actions were different, some aspects of their actions were very similar. For one thing, both actions came from motivation from family and the will to get their lives back. Montresor wanted to bring peace to his family’s name and bring back his superior life and Farquhar wanted to escape to go back to his family and to live. Motivations grew stronger when their social status suffered as well. In their own ways, own lifestyle, they were both high in statuses. Montresor was wealthy and had a superior family. Farquhar was a respected farmer that owned a lot of slaves. But their status was changed and they had to fight to reclaim what belonged to them. Not only that, but both characters were in a delirious state of mind in one point in time. Montresor heard voices while Fortunato was dying and Farquhar was seeing things in his mind. By knowing about these similar aspects, we know that both stories’ themes are similar in which death isn’t the main focus point, but life is and how both characters did what they did because of life. Although, both Farquhar’s and Montresor’s motivation aspects were similar, it has a lot of differences as well. Montresor killed Fortunato to recapture all that belonged to him and Farquhar dreamt that he was escaping because life is precious. And the big difference about these two themes was that Montresor’s actions actually happened while Farquhar’s action was just a figment of his imagination. Not to mention, Montresor was actually doing the killing while Farquhar was the one being killed. To make the two characters even more different, timing was different. Although, in both stories, it seemed like things were going in a normal pace but actually in The Cask of Amontillado, everything in the story occurred 50 years after it was told and in An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, everything occurred in matter of seconds. Also, the morals were different in which the moral in The Cask of Amontillado was to not destroy a person’s life because what goes around comes around and unfortunately; for Fortunato, Montresor was crazy enough to literally take away Fortunato’s life as oppose to Fortunato figuratively taking Montresor’s life away. And in the An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, the moral was to never underestimate life because life can end at any second. By knowing the dissimilar aspects, we get a better understanding of how Montresor did what he did to get his life back, while Farquhar wanted to keep his life. In the stories, The Cask of Amontillado and An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, both characters shared similarities and differences. But what both protagonists proved in the stories was that death wasn’t the inevitable meaning of the stories. It was about controlling their destiny in which one character’s message to the readers was what goes around comes around and the other character’s message was to not take life for granted.