Deconstruction Literary Theory

When my eighth graders read Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" last year, one metaphor that many of them seemed interested in analyzing was that of the "dancing driftwood" that Farquhar watches floating down the river. Some interpreted the metaphor as representing Farquhar's life drifting away from him as he stands on the brink of death. Others saw foreshadowing of Farquhar's escape as he himself would soon float down the stream, just as the driftwood did.








Likewise, the students had multiple interpretations for the ticking of Farquhar's watch.

Some imagined that it pointed to Farquhar's "time" running out since he was facing death.



Others thought it represented his heartbeat and, thus, his will to live.










Below is a clip from the 1963 short film adaptation of the story that features both of these scenes.

In my opinion, all of them were right. I think that the dualistic symbolism that they found in the metaphors further enhanced the story's plot point of a dual reality. By finding multiple meanings for these symbols, the students tapped into subtle hints in the story that would not be available to them if each metaphor were assigned only one interpretation.

Though I had been working with these students on identifying metaphors and other forms of figurative language throughout the entire unit, I feel that it would have been beneficial to have them use some of the informal writing activities suggested in the Phillipot & Graves article. In particular, a dialogue journal between pairs of students would have been effective for facilitating a deconstructionist analysis by encouraging multiple interpretations of the work.