The Pit And The Pendulum By Edgar Allan Poe

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

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.

Edgar Allen Poe is one of the greatest Sci-Fi/Mystery writers of all times. Two of his most popular poems, “The Tell Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” have elements that relate to each other but at the same time they differ. The use of suspense in his poems is proficient, and it makes the readers want to read on because they are intrigued and they want to know what is going to happen next! Poe gives a good example of what an unreliable narrator is in his poems, he shows that sometimes they can’t be trusted because of their actions and what they say and do. The themes in the two poems are greatly different, but show a clear panorama of what the poems are going to be about. While the theme in Edgar Allen Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum” are different, the way he used suspense and unreliable narrator are alike.

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

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.

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.

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.

The deaths of his parents, sister and brother, all taken by tuberculosis, lead to Edgar Allan Poe’s obsession around the subject of death. This obsession enterprises historically ingenious writings, that did not just scare the reading population by inducing a death at the climax or tying in a death to create a gasp worthy ending. Poe’s historic greatness was his ability to use death as a catalyst, not an end. His stories, specifically short stories, strengthened the idea that the end of a life, has so much more meaning, than just the end. This precision was formed by how Poe ingeniously used the knowledge to not only comprise stories involving the subject of death, but used the stories to create deep ideas of the phantom of fatality. The short stories “The Black Cat,” “The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” all feature the inventive writing skills of Poe, that have enthralled populations since their publications.

Edgar Allen Poe is an early 19th century writer and poet that is mostly known for his alluring short stories and poems. Poe’s works of literature are usually extremely dark and gothic. Poe’s arguably most famous poem, “The Raven,” displays a supernatural experience between a man and a talking raven that flew into his house in the middle of the night. Another one of Poe’s popular piece of work, “The Pit and the Pendulum,” tells the story of a man who has just been placed in a prison designed for torture. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” and “Pit and the Pendulum,” Poe creates suspense for the reader through the use of an unreliable narrator, his perplexing tone, and his use of gothic imagery.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s story, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” poe uses the elements of unknowingness, fear, and fight or flight, descriptive words to add suspense to the story. The man within the story is being sentenced to death because of his faith, he is found guilty and then taken to a duongen and tortured, he is put through 3 different ways of tortures before a french general saves him. First when he is laying on the stone table he decides to do this, ¨At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes, my worst thoughts, then, were confirmed¨ (Poe #3). The previous sentence shows that he was fearful of the situation he is in. Second when he now knows he can't see he does this, ¨Such a supposition, notwithstanding what we

Have you ever wondered why you might find yourself on the edge of your seat at a horror movie? Or, maybe you find your heart racing once you get to the climax of a certain novel? Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most famous American authors known for his dark tales and poems. When reading his works, many feel drawn to them because of wanting to know what will happen to the characters. In many of his stories and poems, Poe uses different elements of suspense that contribute to the plot and features they have. In, The Raven and The Pit and the Pendulum, the creation of suspense is shown through the utilization of sound devices, imagery, and allusions.

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

Edgar Allan Poe has a distinctive and dark way of writing (Poe & Kennedy, pp.22). His mysterious style of writing appeals to passion and sentimentality. Poe’s most prominent works of fiction are gothic. His stories tend to have similar recurring theme of either death, lost love or both. Poe’s psychologically thrilling stories examining the depths of the humanoid psyche earned him much fame throughout his lifetime and after his death. And this distinctive style of writing made him possess his own style of wiring (Arbor, pp.71). There is a psychological concentration which is an important characteristic of Poe’s literatures, particularly the tales of horror that encompass his best and well-known works, such as The Black Cat and The Raven which

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.

Additionally, “The Pit and the Pendulum” is a nail-biting narration of a prisoner being kept in a dungeon. Unaware of what his fate will be, the narrator assumes he will suffer death by hanging, until he explores his unlit surroundings and finds he is in a dungeon with a deep pit in the floor and a pendulum like scythe swinging from the ceiling above. Left to die, the narrator is saved in his last moments of despair by General Laselle who has taken over the prison as part of his crusade to end the inquisition. Perhaps one of Poe's most aspirant pieces of writing, the narrator in the “The Pit and Pendulum” never relinquishes himself to what the reader may view as an inevitable, certain death.