animation of An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
Fragment selected from An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge:
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead. (...) A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
sectional analysis:
Article:
As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he lost consciousness and was as one already dead.
Background:
I put blue ink and cleanser essence into a bowl of water, then recorded the process of pouring in new water.
Diving process:
I watched videos and animations of people diving. animations of people diving.
Article:
From this state he was awakened--ages later, it seemed to him--by the pain of a sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation. Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared to flash along well-defined lines of ramification and to beat with an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fulness--of congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The intellectual part of his nature was already effaced; he had power only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion.
I repeated the frames to show Farquhar tried so hard to turn because of the pain (the red colour that blowout from his mouth).
Article:
Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once, with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the noise of a loud splash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging at the bottom of a river!--the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light, but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer.
I tried to create a sense of humor here to show Farquhar was unthinkable by designing the expression in his eye and the clouds with simple shapes and contrast colours. He absorbed the clouds then spread them from his eyes means he started to travelling through time.
The colours of the eyeball was inspired by Pierre Bonnard’s painting. They represent the beauty of the world that he perceived.
I make Farquhar’s eyes combined with each other then burst out into many small ones to show how his soul was keeping his faith.
Article:
Then it began to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the surface--knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable. “To be hanged and drowned,” he thought? “that is not so bad; but I do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.”
He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler, without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!--what magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor! Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside, its undulations resembling those of a water snake. “Put it back, put it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire; his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head emerge; his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs engulfed a great draught of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!
After he broke loose, his soul was released and he could feel souls from other creatures across time and space. He almost became them.
Article:
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. He felt the ripples upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf--saw the very insects upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the grey spiders stretching their webs from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragon flies’ wings, the strokes of the water-spiders’ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat--all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he heard the rush of its body parting the water.
Photos of gardens, forest, insects, lakes and flowers that I took.
My interpretation:
The story is about the elasticity of time and spaces. Contrasts between dead and alive, inside and outside, subjectivity and objectivity, reality and illusion. The cruelty of life. And the strong desire to live from Peyton’s soul. The last part of the story is talking about the feelings of Peyton’s soul, that’s why he felts he was in full possession of his physical senses and accepted so many information in a very short time and at a stationary place as well.