At the beginning of the story, Farquhar’s incessantly ticking watch foreshadows his impending death. After the narrator describes the soldiers surrounding Farquhar on the bridge, Farquhar attempts to focus his final thoughts on his family, only to be distracted by a frightening ticking sound that the narrator reveals to be his watch:
He awaited each stroke with impatience and — he knew not why — apprehension. The intervals of silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening. With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
This section marks a shift in the straightforward narration of the opening, turning to foreshadow his imminent death while adding to the foreboding mood and tone. The constant ticking of his watch sparks fear in Farquhar. He awaits each stroke of his watch with “impatience" and "apprehension"—two things that readers themselves begin to feel as the watch ticks on.
Furthermore, the simile describing how the ticking sounds “hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife” is especially poignant because it adds to the foreshadowing of his death by evoking images of violence that are similar to the violent end Farquhar ultimately experiences.
Lastly, this passage not only foreshadows his death but also foreshadows the shift in mood and tone later in the story, when Farquhar imagines his fervent escape. The watch does not behave like a normal watch: the ticking sounds become infrequent, and “with their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and sharpness.” Instead of steadily marking the passage of time, the watch begins to distort into an altered reality, foreshadowing the shift in perception later in the story while adding suspense.
During Farquhar’s hallucinated escape, Bierce uses a simile to demonstrate Farquhar's exaggerated sense of perception when it comes to the surrounding world. This simile hints that his perception of an exciting escape is, in fact, in his imagination. For example, Bierce writes:
He dug his fingers into the sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing beautiful which it did not resemble.
This simile is especially significant because it demonstrates Farquhar’s altered mental state. Furthermore, he sees the beauty of nature around him, likening it to precious gems because the nature—and, more specifically, the ground he imagines standing on—represent freedom and life, which are as important to him as gems. Indeed, when the narrative suggests that the ground looks to Farquhar "like diamonds, rubies, emeralds," the story emphasizes his deep-rooted desire to live and escape, capturing his exuberance about and appreciation of the surrounding world. Suddenly, everything looks unfathomably beautiful.
However, this extravagant simile takes on another layer of meaning at the end of the story, when readers learn that Farquhar imagined his escape. Instead of a shining representation of life, the ground of diamonds and rubies is a mockery of how life has now been ripped away from him.
A final simile comes in the penultimate line of the story, bringing Bierce’s commentary on the Civil War to the forefront:
As he is about to clasp [his wife], he feels a stunning blow upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him with a sound like the shock of a cannon — then all is darkness and silence!
This quote marks the culminating moment in which Bierce reveals that Farquhar has only imagined his escape and is, in fact, dead. Here, death is compared to the “shock of a cannon” following a blinding white light. This simile uses harsh language to shock readers, and Farquhar, into reality. The simile comparing the sound of him being hung to the “shock of a cannon” immediately evokes a violent and loud feeling—a sharp shift from the hopeful tone when Farquhar imagines that he is about to embrace his wife.
The simile of a cannon bringing death is especially important in this penultimate line because it evokes the Civil War itself and the harsh realities that come with war. Cannons were a common weapon in the Civil War, so their booming sound evokes violence and death. By specifically comparing Farquhar’s experience of death to the “shock” of a cannon, Bierce ties Farquhar’s death to the war itself.
Furthermore, this simile represents how Farquhar is being punished because he represents the Confederacy and, thus, white enslavers. White light blazes around him as he imagines arriving at his home—which represents this southern privilege—but he is then shocked back into the reality of war “like the shock of a cannon,” leading to darkness. This strong and definitive simile helps suggest that his death is representative of the Union’s defeat of the Confederacy.
