Commentary On The Pit And The Pendulum Essay

The Pit and the Pendulum is a short story by Edgar Allen Poe. Written in a dense, detailed style, it tells the story of a victim of torture at the hands o the Inquisition, and his fortunate escape. The story has a strong imagery, significantly the pit and the pendulum mentioned in the title, and creates and atmosphere of fear and tension.

The story mainly narrates the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. The narrator of the story is believed to be guilty for an unidentified crime and is put into a completely dark room. He spends quite a long time trying to determine the size of the room and when he wakes up, he realizes that there is a large pit in the middle of the room. He then loses consciousness again and awakens paralyzed on his back, unable to move most of his body. Right after, he realizes there is a large sharp pendulum hanging above him, slowly getting closer to him. He then finds a way to escape but the walls of his prison start to move closer to him, pushing him closer to falling into the pit. The characters fortunate escape is due to the French Napoleonic invasion.

Some of the opinions and attitudes expressed in the story directly manifest his dislike towards Spain and the rigid control of the Inquisition at the time. Edgar Allan Poes descriptive short prose depicts Spain like a place where freedom is concealed and everyones thoughts were controlled. The main purpose of writing this novel was to illustrate how morally wrong the Spanish Inquisition were of making prisoners undergo their fatal and brutal psychological and physical tortures. It is very interesting how he illustrates the French as heroes by saving the prisoner from the Spanish torturers. The Pit and the Pendulum represents Spain as an immoral country with no liberty of expression where torture was the easiest and most common way when dealing with problems. Edgar Alan Poe gives his character a brave and hopeful personality aiming to represent emotions and realities such as the free spirit and rebellion against oppression; which he may believe that America has. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as the sound of the sharp blade or the moving walls.

The pit and the pendulum, is a very descriptive narration that involves a detailed imagery allowing the reader to picture in their mind every centimetre of the torture cell. The language used in the story is very symbolic and uses some Latin words like Deux et Machina (God out of the machine) that symbolise the French as heroes. Since the story is narrated in first person, the meaningful images created in the readers mind are able to imagine what the character feels as if it were the reader itself who is living those tortures. This particular technique informs the reader about the particular feelings and emotions of the character such as fear, pain, hope or hunger. "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a realistic short story that evokes terror on the reader. The opening line suggests that he is suffering from death anxiety ("I was sick - sick unto death with that long agony") and right losing his consciousness. This anxiety is ironic because the reader knows already about the narrator's hidden survival (the text refers to the black-robed judges having teeth "whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these pages", showing that he wrote the story after the events had happened. What makes the story effective at inducing terror and reality is its lack of supernatural ideas and elements because the story takes place in a historical period. The reality of the story is highlighted through the characters sensations (the dungeon is airless, the narrator suffers from thirst and starvation, he is surrounded by rats, the closing walls, and the swinging sharp pendulum that is threatening the narrator.

Even though "The Pit and the Pendulum" focuses on a single character, the reader discovers very little about him because the name is not identified and neither whether he is really guilty or not. All that is known is that he faces the horrors of mental and physical torture leading into an inevitable death. Edgar Allan Poe is certainly enthusiastic on filling his readers with tension and anxiety, but the reason why The Pit and the Pendulum is so frightening is due to the way that Poe describes the characters thoughts and emotions. He creates such a realistic imagery upon readers that the characters fear and suspense is felt in first person.