Answer to Question 1
- These college students who are home on summer break were dangerous characters then, because they wore torn-up leather jackets, sniffed glue and ether, and read novels by Andr Gide. In particular, the narrator calls Digby bad because he has a gold star in his right ear. Jeff thinks of quitting school to become an artist/businessman. They can both roll a tight joint while driving 85 miles per hour; they are quick with a sneer; they always wear their mirror shades. On the night of the story, they are restless: They have been in and out of every bar, they have thrown two dozen raw eggs at mailboxes, and, at 2 A.M., they have no place else to go but Greasy Lake.
Are Digby and Jeff really bad? Debate this with your students. Certainly they are engaging in the kind of behavior they think is expected of them, which they have seen in films and read in novels (par. 1, 3, 4). When, on the night of the story, their rebellion backfires, throwing them into a grimmer world than they had bargained for, they feel revulsion. As is clear at the end, they have had enough of being bad.
Answer to Question 2
- In defense of the way the story is told, wed argue mainly that Bierces use of flashback heightens the suspense created by the opening scene on the bridge.
A topic for writing: Compare this story with Borgess The Gospel According to Mark. Both stories deal with men on the brink of death and their inner experiences.
A famous French film adaptation of Owl Creek won an Academy Award in 1964 for best short subject and was later used by Rod Serling for a
Twilight Zone episode. It has almost no dialogue and is available on DVD from Library Video Company at
www.libraryvideo.co m.
Jeff Wall, A Sudden Gust of Wind (After Hokusai).
Roy Lichtenstein, Oh, Jeff . . . I Love You, Too . . . But . . .
Cultures Ideal Body Types
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Blondie - Call Me (Official Video)