Pit And The Pendulum Symbolism

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.

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.

“Hell is a cauldron of boulders and trees…It’s a wild place…The cliffs all around it are spectacular, hundreds of metres high in places. There’s a series of small cliffs called Satan’s Steps

    Hell is said to be the worst place to ever exist, and it is greatly feared about on earth and in the minds of people. “Hell is gaping for them, the flames gather and flash about them, and would fain lay hold on them and swallow them up,” this illustrates personification in giving the flames of hell the live ability to hold and swallow us. It portrays how we will be consumed by our own sins if we do not act on them to better ourselves. If we let our sins pile up they will weigh us down and we will eventually be brought down to hell to pay for our wrong doings.

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

The temporal setting “oppress the character with the shape of a pendulum” (3) He fears its deadly velocity which represents his final hours of life. He feels terror of the doom that will “cut” his time on earth. As everyone knows, this symbolizes that death is inevitable.

The entire piece is portraying a disturbing image. The very first line states,” So that, thus it is that natural men are held in the hand of God, over the pit of hell; they have deserved the fiery pit, and are already sentenced to it…” Edwards’ uses specific words such as,”fiery” and “pit of hell.” He also uses imagery when he says,” There is the dreadful pit of the glowing flames of the wrath of God; there is hell’s wide gaping mouth open…” Once again, the use of portraying the fiery depths of hell to his audience will instill fear into them. This image of fire and hell is often repeated and shown throughout the sermon. With all of the imagery Edwards’ uses he creates suspense in the audience by describing this terrible place that everyone will end up in unless they follow what he says. Mostly uneducated people with no other sources of information will listen to him because of the fear imagery instilled in

Robert Herrick, an English poet, once said, “Hell is no other but a soundlesse pit, where no one beame of comfort peeps in it.” Picture any type of Hell with relief, happiness, or even the smallest crack of a smile. There is no place. In fact, one can only think of the complete opposite, whether it is a Hell filled with neglect, pain, disgust, or a never-ending life of horror. This is the place created by Dante Alighieri; The Inferno is exactly the type of Hell where no person would want to be. Even those who acted upon the lightest of sins suffered greatly. While each realm contained a different sinner, the punishment that each were forced to face was cruel, repulsive, and sometimes rather disgusting. Through grieving tears without an

Body Paragraph 1: In “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death” the characters both try to prevent

After emerging from the dark woods after Dante’s vision, Dante and Virgil find themselves at the gates of Hell, which were inscribed with “Abandon every hope, Ye that Enter.” ( This should be found in the second or third Canto of The Divine Comedy, at the place that Dante and Virgil are about to enter Hell). If it is not there, just leave the sentence and remove the brackets for the citation) Hell is a funnel shape pit that is divided into nine terraces. Virgil, Dante’s escort resides in the area known as Limbo. He is placed in this area because he died before Christianity. Nevertheless, Virgil is not subjected to Hell. Each terrace provides living space for individuals who were in Hell for the different categories of sin for which they were suffering. The lower the terrace, the more severe the punishment. Satan resides in the very bottom level of Hell. Dante gives a very vivid description of his first sight of Satan when he writes, “The emperor of the despondent kingdom so towered—from midchest—above the ice, that I match better with a giant’s height than giants match the measure of his arms; now you can gauge

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.