Theme Of The Pit And The Pendulum

“The Pit and the Pendulum” is a daring short story by Edgar Allan Poe. “The Pit and the Pendulum” is about a man who is captured by the Spanish Inquisition and thrown into one of their toughest prisons. There is little detail given of why the narrator is in this prison and the name of the narrator is another detail left unanswered. None the less there is an incredible amount of detail given in the story and each of these details culminate to form an amazing story of escape. This story is considered to be a prime example of how Poe creates incredibly intense scenes of pure horror and fear through the first person accounts of a single narrator. However, there is an underlying sense of ingenuousness and luck involved in the story of “The Pit …show more content…
This part of the story is one part that is very close to historically accurate for the time period of the main character. These tortures are seen throughout the story in many ways, shapes, and forms. The first form of torture is the impending darkness in the narrator 's cell. This is a form of torture that has a long lasting effect on those who encounter it. This is because it creates a sense of unknowingness that only the dark can create. Even so the narrator is able to conquer the darkness by using his other senses to figure out the dimensions of the room. Another torture used is present in the first attempted mode of execution used by the narrator’s captors. The first method of execution or torture is the pendulum. This device creates a horror and sense of impending doom by its slow travel down towards the narrator. Doing this causes the subject to know what is going to happen to them when the pendulum reaches them and causes a huge amount of terror as they brace themselves to die. All these tortures can have an overwhelming effect on a person 's psyche, despite this it appears that the narrator is still able to keep calm enough to think through what is happening to him. The final major form of torture is the pit and walls of the cell. These walls are designed to heat up and close in on whoever is inside. As the walls close in you are forced towards a very deep pit the is in all likelihood a lethal fall. This final form of torture not only inflicts physical pain from the heat, but it also causes an intense dread as you realize the only way to escape the pain is to jump to your probable death. Yet the narrator does not have to succumb to this final form of torture, simply because he is saved by some unknown power that stops the torture machine from working and removes him from the cell. In the end, it is the perfect combination of luck and