Toni Calobrisi

English III

The Pit and the Pendulum

By Edgar Allan Poe

“I struggled no more, but my agony was released in one loud, long, and final scream of despair. I felt that I tottered upon the edge-I closed my eyes…” (76). In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” the narrator is captured by the Spanish Inquisition and undergoes various forms of torture; whether the narrator’s torment is all a part of his imagination or not is left implicit. Because of Poe’s excellent use of literary elements, “The Pit and the Pendulum” grasps the reader’s undivided attention and throws them into the backseat of the narrator’s ride through Hell.

Foremost, Poe uses setting to enhance the reader’s senses and establish an overall mood.  In other words, Poe’s dark depiction of where the story takes place heightens one’s imagination while he reads. As the story opens, the narrator is being continuously brought further down “into a flat [and] damp place” (74). Accordingly, one may predict that the narrator’s situation is not going to get any better. Poe then moves on to describe the forsaken room as “slimy, cold, and small” (74) with the lurking stench of decay.  Eventually the narrator falls asleep, only to be woken up by “a dim blue light [showing him]” (75) just how small and frightening the room really is.  The walls, “some kind of metal plates” (74), are atrociously covered in grotesque pictures of demons and skeletons.  Based on these descriptions one may instantaneously feel sorry for the narrator under such clammy, mentally painful, and frightening conditions. Therefore, as a result of Poe’s detailed imagery, the sequence of events is understood at a much deeper level as opposed to a simple and straightforward story.

Furthermore, Poe utilizes symbolism to broaden the significance of “The Pit and the Pendulum.” To clarify, Poe uses the practice of representing things by symbols to deepen the meaning of the story.  For example, in the beginning the narrator could see the white lips of black-robed judges moving but did not hear a sound. Poe chose black robes not only because black represents death, but also to reflect the intentions of the Inquisition with the hostages. The judges are clearly symbols of death with their extreme likeness to the widely recognizable Grim Reaper, the personification of death. Equally important, Poe uses the wild rats as a representation of death, decay, horror, and torture. Poe makes it apparent that rats appall the narrator, bringing forth the reason one may believe they stand for man’s greatest fears. On the other hand, the rats stand for the narrator’s absolute horror due to being in the miniature dungeon. In view of the fact that rats are commonly dreaded, this symbol is easily understood. In addition, at one point in the story the narrator sees what he believes to be “a picture of Time holding a huge clock pendulum” (75). This is a symbol of the archetype Father Time, and the myth of time being in his hands. Upon gazing at the painting for quite some time, the narrator comes to the realization that the pendulum was in fact a swinging blade. “The swing of the pendulum and it’s speed had increased. [However] what mainly [bothers him] was that it was [getting] lower” (75). The pendulum’s pace of movement is a representation of how time moves on. On the whole, symbols such as these are the key to taking a story to the next level.

Finally, Poe effectively ties the story and it's literary elements together with his outstanding use of themes. To put it plainly, a story without a theme is like a ship without a captain; even though it still sails, it has no purpose. The main theme in the "Pit and the Pendulum" is man's battle of overcoming his worst fears. Poe chooses this as a mirror to everyone’s own battles and how facing them is the only way one many survive. The narrator is not only faced with "the blackness of eternal night" (74), but also the idea of having feral rats right on his body in order to save his life. It was "with a more than human courage [he manages] to lay still" (75).  Another theme in the "The Pit and the Pendulum" worth mentioning is how the Spanish Inquisition are Christians, and yet their treacherous acts of torture clearly contradict their religion.  Although some people may prefer turning the other cheek, many Romantics such as Poe acknowledge the darker side of things and the hypocrisy of one’s actions. Without a doubt, these themes contribute to the overall meaning of the story, and the reason as to why it was written.

To be sure, "The Pit and the Pendulum" would have minimal affect on the reader without Poe's admirable literary elements. Furthermore, in the end of “The Pit and the Pendulum”, the narrator is shocked to hear “a noise of human voices, [and] a loud blast of many trumpets” (76). Afterwards, he observes “the fiery walls [rushing] back” (76) as he is saved by the arm of a French soldier. All of this supports the belief that the narrator was in fact dreaming. If you were dropped into a small, dark, and slimy room, what would you do?