“THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM” EDGAR ALLAN POE

THEMES Death Captivity Fear Self, Solitude, Consciousness Power of Memory Concept of reality Madness/Insanity Hope

PLOT The narrator is being sentenced to death. He is being judged by inquisitors during the Spanish Inquisition. This is bad because during the Spanish Inquisition, deaths were slow and painful. People were tortured to death then. The narrator keeps passing out and waking up again. He realizes he is being carried down stairs. He wakes up and is on the floor in a dark cell. He gets up and starts walking. He decides to try to figure out the size of the dungeon. Soon, he passes out again. When he wakes up, he finds a loaf of bread and some water next to him. He eats, then finishes trying measure the cell. He decides to walk straight across the cell to measure its diameter. However, he soon falls down again, at the edge of a deep hole (called a pit). He is safe for now, but knows that the inquisitors are preparing to torture him—death by the pit. The narrator goes back to the wall and falls asleep again.

When he wakes up, there is a little light in the dungeon. He sees that the dungeon is square. And he is tied down to a wooden rack and can only use his left hand. Next to him, there’s a plate full of very salty meat. The meat is being eaten by a lot of rats. Then, he looks up and sees a picture of Father Time, who seems to be holding a pendulum. He soon realizes that the pendulum is moving, and it is getting closer and closer to him. As the pendulum comes closer, he realizes that the bottom edge of the pendulum is razor sharp. It is meant to cut him in half. Soon, he comes up with a plan to escape. He rubs the meat on the bands that are holding him down. The rats then chew the bands and he is freed. His relief doesn’t last long. The walls begin to glow and the shape of the room begins to change. The narrator realizes that he is slowing being pushed into the pit by the burning hot walls that are closing in on him. Right when it seems like his only choice is to burn against the walls or fall into the pit, he is rescued by General Lasalle, the leader of the French Army. The story finishes with the end of not only the narrator’s torture, but also of the Inquisition.

QUOTES AND INTERPRETATIONS “Looking upwards I surveyed the ceiling of my prison. […] In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole attention. It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum, such as we see on antique clocks.” ~ Themes: death, captivity; Literary devices: symbolism, foreshadowing; Question to Consider: How is this foreshadowing? “I had swooned; but will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost. In the deepest slumber – no! In delirium – no! In a swoon -- no! In death – no! even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man.” ~ Themes: death, consciousness, concept of reality; Literary devices: parallel structure, climactic structure, inversion; Question to Consider: How would you interpret this quotation?

"And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.“ Theme: death; Literary devices: simile; Question to Consider: Why compare this thought to a “rich musical note?” “The odour of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed – I wearied heaven with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar. And then I fell suddenly calm and lay smiling at the glittering death as a child at some rare bauble.” Theme: death, insanity; Literary Devices: imagery, simile; Question to Consider: What process is the narrator going through here?

“It was hope that prompted the nerve to quiver – the frame to shrink. It was hope – the hope that triumphs on the rack – that whispers to the death-condemned even in the dungeons of the Inquisition.” ~ Theme: death, captivity, hope; Literary Devices: personification, anaphora; Question to Consider: How does one have hope in a moment like this? I longed, yet dared not, to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around me. It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast lest there should be nothing to see. At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. (5) ~Theme: fear; Question to consider: Of all the things he could see in the dungeon, why is darkness the most terrifying?