Pit And The Pendulum Climax

For this exercise I am using the final two paragraphs of The Pit and the Pendulum.

At the climax of The Pit and the Pendulum, the narrator realises that using reason and rationality in his struggle to avoid death is futile, and so he abandons himself to his instinct as he unwillingly confronts the pit, the symbol of the dark, unknown part of his psyche (just as his cell is representative of his mind).. This confrontation is more terrifying than death and his unexpected rescue is all the more jarring, as it is a moment of reality intruding on a mind that is close to the edge of sanity.

Poe’s use of mathematical language shows how the narrator is still trying to rationalise this newest torture, describing the room as square, angles that are acute and obtuse, the cell changing into a lozenge shape. These attempts at reasoning are in vain, yet he cannot help himself and, realising that his choice of death will be death from …show more content…
From a dreamlike, exploration of a man’s psychological journey, the story moves now to one rooted in reality. Poe seems to be playing with, even mocking the readers who expect the story to end in the same way it has been told up to this point. Yet it seems the rescue is more than a deux ex machina. The final paragraph is a counterpoint to the opening passages of the story with the “dreamy indeterminate hum” of the opening now mirrored with the “discordant hum of human voices”, the narrator’s inability to hear the Inquisitor’s speak his name is reversed as he now he hears a “loud blast as of many trumpets!” and a “harsh grating as of a thousand thunders!”. While the rescue isn’t foreshadowed exactly, it circles back to the beginning of the story. The narrator has been rescued from the depths of his unknown, dark mind by the invasion of