Theme

The theme I picked for this story is: No matter how hard you try to hide from your circumstances, reality will always catch up to you. The entire basis of the story is Farquhar's imagination. As he is being hung he imagines that he is escaping. It doesn't matter what he pretends is happening, in the end he is killed anyways. Bierco shows this through imagery. Every time Farquhar is imagining something there is so much imagery and personification, but as soon as reality hits the story goes back to being very dry. "A blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like a shock of a cannon." This is the last colorful descriptive sentence. The last lines of the story are: "Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung gently." The ending, back to reality, goes back to being very dry again. Your imagination is very colorful, while reality is much dryer and darker.