What is their family history like, and how is it important to their characters and their relationships?

In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, Ambrose Bierce creates a fascinating tale of reality combined with something like fantasy. In it, we meet Peyton Farquhar, a “well-to-do planter, of an old and highly respected Alabama family… and a slave owner [who was] an original secessionist…ardently devoted to the Southern cause” (23). Develop an argument and a thesis based around the following questions:• In Part I, a man, preparing to be hanged for the crime of attempting to set a Union-occupied bridge on fire, observes his surroundings. Yet, as readers, we already see evidence that his perception of reality is not quite reliable. Where is that evidence, and what might it tell us about this man’s state of mind?• In Part II, we learn who the man who is about to be hung is, as well as why he is about to be hanged. What has led him to this current situation, and what does it tell us about his judgement (or possible errors in judgement)?• In Part III, the longest and most challenging part of the story, Peyton Farquhar’s escape from his captors and his attempts to return home are recounted. Many first-time readers are shocked by the ending, but that is at least partly due to a reading of the story which fails to pay adequate attention to many of the details found in this part of the story. What evidence do we have that what we are told Farquhar is seeing, hearing, and experiencing could not actually be possible, and how do you explain it all?2. In “Sonny’s Blues”, James Baldwin explores the relationship between two brothers. What is their family history like, and how is it important to their characters and their relationships? How is the setting of the story important to the development of the characters? Why do they seem to have so much difficulty understanding each other? What do their individual concerns and desires say about each of them? What makes them so very different from each other considering that they come from the same background, were raised by the same parents, and grew up in the same neighborhood? How do their differences drive the action of the story? How is resolution achieved, and why is it important to the overall themes of love, family, community, and hope in the face of despair?3. In “A Good Man is Hard to Find”, Flannery O’Connor, as part of the group of Southern Gothic writers, returns to her concerns about the faded glory of the once proud South. How does the grandmother in the story display the values of a once highly-mannered and genteel South? How do Red Sammy and his wife share the grandmother’s laments about how much times have changed? How do her children and grandchildren display what Southern Gothic writers like Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner see as an erosion of those Southern values and manners? How do the Misfit and his crew display an even further erosion of civilized human values and respect for human life, and why do you think this story might be relevant to modern standards of human decency?4. Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried” chronicles the lives of men fighting in the Vietnam war. What do the things they carry tell us about the individual men in the story and about their ability and will to collectively survive in the climate of war? Discuss at least two characters and the specific things they carry in your discussion which reveal the individuality of each character. Beyond these individual differences, what do all the men carry in common? What purpose do the things they carry serve, and why would O’Brien choose to make the things they carried both the title and the central motif of the story?

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