# On the Platform explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Ambrose Bierce.

## What happens

The narrator attends a lecture by Dr. Bill Bartlett on intellectual life, but finds it so tedious that he falls asleep and dreams of Bartlett being hanged on a gibbet. In the dream, the narrator urges him to leave the platform, but Bartlett falls through the trap, and the narrator becomes fascinated by the thoughts expressed in his dying movements.

## Themes in this chapter

### Hypocrisy and Corruption

The lecture on intellectual life is portrayed as empty and tedious, leading to a dream of the lecturer's execution, suggesting a critique of hollow intellectualism.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown

The narrator attends the lecture, falls asleep, and dreams of the hanging.

### Bill Bartlett

The lecturer, who in the narrator's dream is hanged on a gibbet.

## Key lines

> When Dr. Bill Bartlett stepped out of the hum Of Mammon’s distracting and wearisome strife To stand and deliver a lecture on “Some Conditions of Intellectual Life,” I cursed the offender who gave him the hall To lecture on any conditions at all!

When Dr. Bill Bartlett left the noisy, money-driven world to give a lecture on intellectual life, I was angry at whoever provided the venue for such a pointless talk.

_The narrator expresses frustration with the lecture before it even begins._

> But he rose with a fire divine in his eye, Haranguing with endless abundance of breath, Till I slept; and I dreamed of a gibbet reared high, And Dr. Bill Bartlett was dressing for death.

He spoke passionately and at great length until I fell asleep and dreamed of a gallows where Dr. Bill Bartlett was preparing to be executed.

_The narrator's boredom leads to a vivid dream of the lecturer's death._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters/on-the-platform
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_se/chapters