Superstition In The Pit And The Pendulum

It is a well known fact that Edgar Allan Poe‘s stories are famous for producing horror or terror in his readers beyond description. However, it is one of this essay’s attempts to precisely describe these two characteristics present in The pit and the pendulum and The black cat. Horror may be defined as “the feeling of revulsion that usually occurs after something frightening is seen, heard, or otherwise experienced. It is the feeling one gets after coming to an awful realization or experiencing a deeply unpleasant occurrence.” On the contrary terror is described as “the feeling of dread and anticipation that precedes the horrifying experience” These two concepts are thought to be crucial when analyzing Poe’s writings. It is going to be

During his life, Edgar Allan Poe wrote many classic poems and short stories. Two of his most famous works are “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a man goes to visit his childhood friend and while there witnesses the fall of the Usher family line. “The Masque of the Red Death,” on the other hand, is about Prince Prospero’s attempts to keep death from his abbey and what ensues when death enters. Throughout both short stories, “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of The House of Usher,” Poe enforces his theme of the fear of death, by carefully crafting the setting, characterization, mood, and point of view of each piece.

The life of Edgar Allan Poe is not a tale of ease. Poe’s life was full of personal and fiscal disaster. These disasters help to mold some of the most ominous and intellectually challenging poetry ever written. For the short duration of Poe’s life, he was seen as a literary critic rather than an author. To the modern generation his unbeknown status seems bafflingly inconceivable, considering his now acclaimed publications. Edgar Allan Poe’s writing was very much dictated by his life. The mournful tone of Edgar Allan Poe’s life created his literature; death and all his friends narrated Poe’s life. Edgar Allan Poe shows his life’s constant despair through his poetry and short story writings.

Edgar Allan Poe is a famous well known writer known for his dark and gothic horror stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart” and many others. The well-known author had a rough life which dealt with a lot of death, so most of his stories revolve around this idea. In “The Cask of Amontillado” and “The Masque of the Red Death” Poe uses similar themes or darkness to convey tone and conflict throughout the story. His writing style is dark and revolves around one main concept: death. Edgar Allan Poe uses diction and syntax, setting and conflict, and characterization in his writing style to develop his stories.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, sets a tone that is dark, gloomy, and threatening. His inclusion of highly descriptive words and various forms of figurative language enhance the story’s evil nature, giving the house and its inhabitants eerie and “supernatural” qualities. Poe’s effective use of personification, symbolism, foreshadowing, and doubling create a morbid tale leading to, and ultimately causing, the fall of (the house of) Usher.

The main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are death, perversity, revenge and destruction. The settings he employed in the given short stories, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat are Gothic. Therefore, naturally the mood of these stories would be dark and sepulchral. However, this is not a trivial employment undertaken to put the reader in a certain kind of zone.

Edgar Allan Poe is known to be one of the greatest poets in history. Although glorified for his artistic genius, his works tend to follow a dismal central theme to fit his dark and gothic style; whether it be death, betrayal, madness, horror, etc. Two of the many Edgar Allan Poe reads are entitled The Pit and the Pendulum and “The Lake.” The Pit and the Pendulum is a short story that follows an unnamed protagonist who has been convicted and sentenced to death. He writes about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition.

Death is an important theme in Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death”.

In the text “The Fall of the House of Usher” there are supernatural events throughout the short story. From the rapidly decaying house that is quite literally connected to the main character Roderick Usher, to the ghost of Roderick's twin sister Madeline. “House of Usher” -- an appellation which seemed to include, in the minds of the peasantry who used it, both the family and the family mansion. This line gives us a hint from the title toward the supernatural link between the physical house collapsing and the metaphorical “fall” of the Usher Family. I believe Edgar Poe did this to evoke an uncanny feeling in the reader and to add to the sublime of the short story. This link between living and inanimate gives the story an extra gothic element. “There was blood upon her white robes, and the evidence of some bitter struggle upon every portion of her emaciated frame. For a moment she remained trembling and reeling to and fro upon the threshold -- then, with a low moaning cry, fell heavily inward upon the person of her brother, and in her violent and now final death-agonies, bore him to the floor a corpse, and a victim to the terrors he had anticipated.” The supernatural element of Madeline “coming back from the dead” or being a ghost creates conflict within the plot and therefore leads to the inevitable fall of the Usher Family. I believe this ghostly figure struck fear into the reader creating a suspenseful follow up, allowing the imagination to take off and picture this supernatural occurrence. This was never an explained supernatural event. It was left up to the reader's imagination and their assumption as to what is real and what is a figment of the characters imagination. “There was a long and

    Edgar Allan Poe once said, “With me, poetry has not been a purpose, but a passion.” When stressed, writing was his coping mechanism, and through observation, many grasp how much death encompassed Poe. Although not appreciated during his era, he revolutionized mystery with mesmerizing story plots that yield suspense, but also makes readers question his stability. Most importantly, unlike those famous during his lifetime who are now forgotten, Poe’s legacy will live on forever. Moreover, throughout life, Poe experienced catastrophe, and because of this, writing became his creative outlet.

Each event in one's life whether important, meaningless, joyful or sickening has an impact on that person's character. Harrowing & tragic events occur often as it was for Edgar Allen Poe which left a vast impact on his character. This author's stories focus on his wretched life and obstacles placed in the forms of stories. His unfortunate events turned into eerie, emblematic tales such as “The Raven”, “The Black Cat”, “The cask of amontillado” & more which all have twisted plot lines such as horror, sadness, revenge etc.

Sadness, guilt, and fear are some of the most negative emotions that humanity can experience, however they are also the strongest. Edgar Allan Poe, a nineteenth century author and poet, is known primarily for his use of these emotions, as well as the results that may come from these emotions, such as substance abuse, depression, and death. However, the ability to write such elegant, sophisticated works that delve into the very dark recesses of the human mind reflects greatly upon the author himself. Repetitive themes found both in Poe’s stories and in his life deliver insight on the inspiration for this author’s stories. Poe uses themes of death, illness, and depression in order to reflect his own experiences within his writing.

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

Edgar Allan Poe integrates his work in “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” by anonymously creating the narrators in first person point of view. Poe vividly uses imagery to help the reader understand the character of the two narrators; Poe uses his gothic, writing techniques to illustrate the narrators and differentiate them in the two short stories. In both short stories, the narrators are given a role: to be killed or be the killer. Edgar Allan Poe distinguishes the role of the two speakers in “The Pit and the Pendulum and “The Tell-Tale Heart”. Edgar Allan Poe justifies the role of the speaker in “The Pit and the Pendulum” to be the one facing death.

“The Fall of the House of Usher (1939)”, arguably Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short story, is a tale centered around the mysterious House of Usher and its equally indiscernible inhabitants. These subjects are plagued with physical and mental degradation – the Usher siblings suffer from various abnormal ailments and unexplained fears, while the house itself seems to be tethering on the edge of collapse. The gothic elements in the story are distributed generously, and the plot is increasingly ridden with the supernatural as it progresses.