illustration of a blade on the end of a pendulum swinging above a man's head

The Pit and the Pendulum

by Edgar Allan Poe

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Discussion Topic

Narrator's Emotions and Character in "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Summary:

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum," the narrator experiences intense fear and curiosity as he navigates his imprisonment by the Inquisition. Initially terrified by the darkness and the unknown, he becomes more inquisitive about his surroundings. Despite facing psychological and physical torture, including the threat of a swinging pendulum, he remains hopeful and resilient. Poe's use of an unreliable narrator adds to the story's tension, highlighting the narrator's fluctuating emotions and survival instinct.

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What are the narrator's feelings about his prison in "The Pit and the Pendulum"?

The simple answer is also the most obvious one: he does not like his prison, as it is a prison. The less obvious answer is a little more tricky. He quickly rules out that he is not dead, but he fears in what condition he might be. He remembers all of the "vague rumors of the horrors of Toledo", and he starts to wonder if they were not rumors at all. Worrying that he would be left to die of starvation or worse, he starts to investigate to the best of his ability, despite the fact that the absolute darkness of his cell prevents him from seeing anything. His mood becomes less frantically paranoid as curiosity takes over and he starts trying to figure out his surroundings. It seems almost that he develops a clinical interest regarding his cell, and although there is still fear of the dangers he faces...

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(such as the pit and the pendulum and the walls literally closing in around him), the frantic fear from the beginning when he had absolutely no idea where he was does not make a reappearance, particularly once the lights come on, allowing him to see his surroundings.

In the end, although he is first incredibly fearful of his unknown prison, once he sees what he is dealing with, he becomes less blatantly terrified and more interested and curious.

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What feelings does the narrator display in "The Pit and the Pendulum"?

Complete and utter terror.  The narrator begins the story by being a victim of the Inquisition, and is imprisoned in a dark room.  Darkness is often enough to scare someone out of his wits...not knowing what else is there with you, where you are, what is going to happen next. He is at first bound, and when he awakens, finds he is free of his restraints but still in complete darkness.  He walks around to get his bearings only to stumble and fall.  Upon falling, he begins to crawl, discovering that had he continued walking, he would have tumbled into a seemingly bottomless pit (he has thrown rocks down to determine the depth).  As if this weren't terrifying enough, he eventually awakens again to find himself bound to a table with a huge pendulum swaying closer and closer to his body.  Thinking quickly, he rubs the meat he has been left to eat on the ropes, so the rats would chew through them.  The entire story is ups and downs--terror and relief--all the way to the end when just as he is about to be severed in two, he is freed by officers of the army.  The ending seems a little too contrite and too good to be true, but the narrator has been through so many spikes of emotion, he doesn't care how he has come to be freed from this emotional roller coaster.  The reader, however, must find a way to swallow the convenience of it all.

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What descriptive words best illustrate the narrator's character in The Pit and the Pendulum?

Like most of Poe's works, it is important to remember that when the story is told in first person (by a narrator who is most often also the main character), it must be understood that character description is not only biased and one-sided, but often cannot be completely trusted.  Poe is famous for his unreliable narrators, which contribute to his trademark mystery, horror, and gothic stories and themes.

The main character and narrator of "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a tortured prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition.  Even before his ultimate imprisonment, he admits in the first line of the story that his mental clarity is leaving him:

I WAS SICK—sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me.

We can assume for the rest of the story that everything he describes (including himself) is filtered through his physicallytortured and mentallyweakened state.

Additionally, he is obviously frightened, not only by the fear of the unknown, but by the assumption that his death is imminent and just around the corner.  At first, he is even to scared to open his eyes:

There I suffered it to remain for many minutes, while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed, yet dared not to employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects around me

However, despite his imprisonment and full bondage (so that only a hand is free to reach food), despite the physical and psychological torture he is fighting to overcome, and despite his fear, he is hopeful that he will be freed and remains strong enough to take account of his surroundings to be able to remember some of the details he recalls, and then to retell his story when he is freed at the end.

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