Pit And The Pendulum Essay

In “The Pit and the Pendulum”, the atmosphere is dark and unsettling. In addition to the setting and characters, there are various other factors that give the story a creepy feel to it. Furthermore, the narrator’s thoughts and descriptions add to the ominous mood of the story. For example, the tale states, “By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me” (Poe 5). At this point in the story, the narrator, falling into his torturers’ trap, tips on the verge of insanity and begins to lose hope. The reader can easily picture the narrator, cowering against the wall, eyes wide, flinching at the slightest of sounds. Therefore, along with the horrifying aspects of the torture chamber, the unstable narrator and his thoughts create a foreboding and macabre feeling characteristic to gothic

Poe uses the main character's actions to show how frightened he is about death throughout the story. Poe uses the main character's actions to show that the main character  was afraid about death and that he didn't want to die.  For example when it says “The plunge into this pit I had avoided by the merest of accidents, and I knew that surprise or entrapment into torment formed an important portion of all these dungeon deaths(Allan Poe 9)”. This quote is talking about how his actions connect to the theme of people are afraid of death. Poe´s use of characterization was effective throughout  the story by showing the main character's behavior. The behavior connects to the theme because in this quote he almost died by falling into the pit.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe, uses the horror elements of ____Isolation_________, ______Madness______, and__Disorentiation_____ to add suspense to the story. In the beginning of the reading of The Pit and the Pendulum, the setting is at the Spanish Inquisition and Edgar Poe sees figures that look like angels, or judges. One of the important horror elements is Madness. The author Edgar Poe states “In other conditions of mind I might have had courage to end my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses; but now I was the veriest of cowards” (Poe 5). The quote is an example of the horror element because he wants to end his misery at once, he has been through so much that he just wants to end his life but

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

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

Poe's economic style of writing is a key instrument in making this story amazing. In this story, he uses his style to truly bring out what he intended for the story - a study of paranoia. In example, "I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! Yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture -- a pale blue eye with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me my blood ran cold, and so by degrees, very gradually, I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever. " it is easy to see that Poe used short sentences, to capture the rapid thoughts of a twisted mind.

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”

The main idea of almost every story by Edgar Allan Poe concerns death, usually because the main character is unreliable and/or mentally unstable. This is the cause of almost all of the deaths and problems that occur in the story, which I will be discussing in further detail. ¨The Raven¨, ¨The Tell-Tale Heart¨, and ¨The Cask of Amontillado¨ are only a couple out of the many horror stories Poe has written. Almost all of his stories incorporate unreliable characters, dark settings, and deadly intentions to create a suspenseful and frightening mood and atmosphere. Poe also uses many symbols in his stories. One of the most important in ¨The Raven¨, ¨The Tell-Tale Heart¨, and ¨The Cask of Amontillado¨ are the raven, the beating heart, and the amontillado, respectively. When further analyzed, one can recognize that all of these symbols connect to the insanity, unreliability, and dangers of the main characters.

The story uses suspenseful mood to help convey the theme. For example, in the story, it says, “But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought my heart must burst” (Poe 3). This quote reveals that the mood is suspenseful because by saying the beating grew louder and his heart was going to burst. This helps to create the theme because he’s feeling guilty for killing the old man. In conclusion, the mood helps to create

Poe uses symbolism to portray the theme of universal fate and how it continues to be something that society implicitly fears. He uses religion to portray

Poe uses imagery in his stories to also interpret how the fear of evil can motivate a person into doing anything to survive. In Poe’s story The Pit and the Pendulum, although the narrator is in consternation during the beginning of the story, he is able to calm himself throughout the story. Furthermore, fear can be a good thing with a little help of hope and logic. During the story, the narrator does not give up: “Even in the grave all was not lost. Else there is no immortality for man,” (63).

In the Pit and the Pendulum Poe uses fiction and history. The narrator is caught in the Spanish Inquisition. The character finds himself in a dark pit counting down his time till death. This story is very relatable to people today because people fear their death and know that it will come in due time. Edgar gets in people’s minds and plays with their biggest

In Edgar Allen Poe’s “Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe uses the horror elements of suspense, madness, and facing your phobias. In the “Pit and the Pendulum” a man is tortured, loses his mind, and eventually is forced to jump down into the pit to his assumed death. Firstly, the suspense in the story really had us waiting for what would come next for example in the story when it said “The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length, I saw that the region that the crescent was designed to cross my heart” (Poe #8). Next we see that Poe uses the element of horror such as, madness when the main character was basically awaiting his own death for instance when he said, “My eyes followed it’s outward or upward whirls with the eagerness of

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.