When Peyton Farquhar is awaiting the fall that will snap his neck in the noose, his perception of time changes, and, therefore, ours seem to as well since it is his thoughts and feelings that the narrator relates. At the end of Part I, Farquhar feels that the time in between the ticks of the second hand on his watch are getting longer and longer, and the sound the hand makes gets louder and louder. ...
When Peyton Farquhar is awaiting the fall that will snap his neck in the noose, his perception of time changes, and, therefore, ours seem to as well since it is his thoughts and feelings that the narrator relates. At the end of Part I, Farquhar feels that the time in between the ticks of the second hand on his watch are getting longer and longer, and the sound the hand makes gets louder and louder. His perception of time slows down so much, and then the exposition in Part II distracts us from what's happening in the present with Farquhar, so that when we get to Part III, we don't necessarily realize that the events being narrated are happening in his imagination.
Details like the way he can see the dew glistening on each flower petal or the buzzing of an insect's wings alert us to the fact that something odd is going on, but other more factual details like the rope burn and swelling around Farquhar's neck seem realistic enough that readers might assume what's happening is real. Our perspective is manipulated by details like these that leave us in some doubt as to what, exactly, is happening to Farquhar in these moments; because his sense of reality is skewed, ours is too.
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