Compare And Contrast The Pit And The Pendulum

Have you ever been so close to death you thought you were dead… or wished you were? The story, The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allan Poe, is about a Frenchman who was visiting Spain and was caught up in the Spanish Inquisition in 1806. He was captured by the church-men who ruled the terrifying land he had ventured to. “They arrested, accused, and tried me… all on the charge that I did not worship God as they did. And for that I was going to die.” The Frenchman was tortured, not only physically but mentally as well, and found himself at death’s door throughout the story.

The unit question asks whether or not the hero of Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” would realistically be able to escape the descending blade swinging on a pendulum. The question is a matter of time, is it feasible for the protagonist to escape the pendulum with the allotted amount of time. Based on standard deviation and testing a pendulum of the same scale as the one mentioned in the story, the answer is no. The protagonist mentions that he believed 10-12 periods of the pendulum would result in the blade coming in contact with his torso. Using the formula developed in class for the period of a pendulum, it would take the 30 foot pendulum described in the story about 72 seconds to complete 12 periods. Testing the actual 30 foot yielded similar results within 1-2 seconds of 72 seconds. Therefore, it is fair to say that the hero is working with 72 seconds to free himself. This does not seem like enough time to develop an escape strategy, act on the strategy, and leave without getting hit bit the pendulum. The method the hero describes involves thinking about the situation and then employing the help of nearby rats. He also mentions, “Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle would be over,” as if to imply he had 1 minute to spare. Since he was reflecting and then enticing the rats to gnaw through the rope it is not likely that it took only 12 seconds to escape. 72 seconds does not seem like enough time for the hero to complete his escape. However, the thickness of the rope and speed of the rats are factors that could affect the outcome.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe, uses the horror elements of isolation, madness, and plot twists to add suspense to the story. A man is put into a dungeon by judges and is awaiting death. They rig multiple traps for him that he keeps getting out of. First, Poe uses isolation for this story by keeping the man inside a dungeon all alone with no light. He opened his eyes and was immediately felt crushed. He said, “The blackness of eternal night encompassed me” (Poe 3). He wakes from fainting and realizes he cannot see. He feels like the darkness is enclosing him into a tight space. Another element is madness. The judges hang a pendulum to the ceiling that will slowly descend and eventually kill the man. It takes days

The theme in “The Pit and the Pendulum” is death and hope. This is displayed in the poem when the narrator realizes the razor sharp pendulum that has been over him swaying from side to side is not an image, and is getting ready to kill him at any second. In the “Pit and the Pendulum” on page 276 it states, “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.” This means the whole time the narrator was in the dungeon he thought the pendulum was nothing but an image of time. When the rats bite through his restraints, he has a feeling of hope that he will escape and not die He feels the same thing

Taking into account the previous descriptions and the definitions of horror and terror we will try to identify which of these stories presents horror and which one may be said to go deeper by portraying terror. The Pit and the pendulum is characterized by having a narrator who seems in absolute use of his mental faculties. As it is mentioned above, this character is aware of what is happening around him and by having a peak of his logical thoughts and feelings the reader experiences the struggle of the narrator to stay alive in a much more personal way. The fact that this character is sane, integrated and coherent in his thinking is one of the reasons why the reader may sense the terror of the story on a whole other level.

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum uses horror and suspicion to build up not only the storyline, but the persona of the narrator in which is also the prisoner. The characteristics of the prisoner ties within the story to create trippy feelings of fear and unassertiveness of whether or not he is truly safe. From the trials that the prisoner has faced, his characteristic of resourcefulness, pessimistic, and terror are revealed and play a salient part of his slick escape.

As you can see, Poe has the narrator terrified of death in the pit. At the same time he has

The chaotic life of Edgar Allan Poe is reflected in his work. The stories The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Cask of Amontillado, are both written using Edgar Allan Poe’s life as a reference. They show elements of his dark depressing life where his mother died of tuberculosis and his dad died as well before he was three. He was then raised as a foster child by his two brothers, Francis and John. He then became a writer of short stories which everyone told him was a mistake. It is also unknown how Poe died which adds yet more mystery to his life. As can be seen, Poe’s life was very dark and dim. This mood is portrayed in Poe’s stories as well. In Cask of Amontillado, Poe writes about a man seeking revenge on his friend and ends up changing him up in the catacombs and then sealing him down there with a wall that he built. The Pit and the Pendulum also has dark elements to it. This story revolves around a prison who fights the battle between jumping into the unknown or letting himself be tortured. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing style in The Pit and the Pendulum and The Cask of Amontillado express conflicts developed by dark and claustrophobic settings, develops a dark mood and tone similar to his own life's mood through dark diction and an immersive point of view, and finally develops a common theme of danger of the unknown by using a limited point of view including ominous, unexplained elements.

The Pit and the Pendulum is about a man who is sentenced to THE PIT during the Spanish Inquisition. The story starts out as describing his trial and quick sentence to THE PIT. Next as he is in

feel isolated and afraid. Moreover, the narrator of “The Pit and the Pendulum” also experiences

In Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe, uses the horror elements of isolation, madness, and plot twist to add suspense to the story. In the beginning, the narrator is standing in front of what he describes as judges as they decide his fate, which adds suspense because the audience doesn’t know what could happen to the narrator when the judges punish him. Secondly, he is all alone, or so he believe. He is the only one experiencing the things that are being done, he is isolated from everyone and it is very dark. The narrator thinks, “My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me,”(Poe 3) as he lays on the damp ground. Towards the middle, the narrator going mad because the Spanish

In this story, Edgar Allan Poe (such as in many of his works) uses the setting to create a dark image inside our minds. He makes this specially through darkness, therefore the character makes a connection with death. “The physical setting oppresses him in the visions of his graveyard” (1).

Purpose Statement: To write a 900 word analytical essay over Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death”

Stephen King once said, “We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.” Bram Stroker, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe may have been a few of the greatest authors of horror to ever live. Out of all of these authors, Poe may have written the most freighting tales. All of his stories are considered horror, but some of them have more horrific qualities than others. “The Pit And The Pendulum” is one of Poe’s most famous works. “The Pit And The Pendulum” by Edgar Allen Poe meets three qualifications of a true horror story.

As a master of short stories of horror, Edgar Allan Poe is knowledgeable, learned and imaginative. He could skillfully manipulate the words in his literary works to create everything people can think of. The masterful use of the symbols, objects intensify the readers’ nerve as the typical elements of horror in Poe’s short stories, and therefore it is also a feature which makes Poe 's stories different from other writers.