Student Question
In "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe, what does "descent of the soul into Hades" mean?
Quick answer:
The phrase "descent of the soul into Hades" in "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a simile used to describe the narrator's sensation of fainting. It likens the loss of consciousness to the soul's journey into the Greek underworld, Hades, a place for the dead. This imagery aligns with the narrator's other morbid and dreamlike thoughts as he experiences a trancelike state following his death sentence.
This quotation occurs at the end of the first paragraph of the story, and it is a simile comparing that which the author is going through to death. In mythology, Hades is the realm of the dead in the afterlife and does not necessarily have any concept of torment or punishment associated with it. However, in Christian tradition, the term "Hades" is the equivalent of hell, a place of eternal suffering where unbelievers go when they die.
When the narrator speaks of Hades, he says this: "all sensation appeared swallowed up in that mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades." The word "as" indicates that the expression is a simile. The narrator faints, as the following line makes clear, "I had swooned." Thus the narrator means that the act of losing consciousness felt to him like he imagined it must feel like for the soul of a person...
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to leave this life and descend into Hades or hell. This figurative language is consistent with the descriptions that precede it in the story. In his state of half-consciousness during the inquest, he imagines the seven candles to be angels. He goes on to consider that dying must be very pleasant. Consequently, the use of this simile for fainting is in keeping with the other-worldly and morbid thoughts the narrator is having in his half-dream state.
What does Poe mean by "descent of the soul into Hades" in "The Pit and the Pendulum"?
This phrase comes at the end of a very long sentence that reads as follows:
The thought came gently and stealthily, and it seemed long before it attained full appreciation; but just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically, from before me; the tall candles sank into nothingness; their flames went out utterly; the blackness of darkness supervened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades.
The narrator, who is in a dreamlike state, has just been condemned to death. The death sentence throws him into a trancelike state, and he describes moving from a strong sense of horror to having a vision of the seven tall white candles before him becoming angels who will save him. Then the vision fades, and it occurs to him that death would be welcome as "sweet rest." Then he describes how the room turns black as he faints—right after he speaks of the "descent as of the soul into Hades," he explains that he swooned.
So, on a literal level, he is describing what it feels like to faint. Fainting feels, right before he loses consciousness, as if he is descending into the underworld. Hades is an allusion to the Greek underworld, a dark, shadowy place where the souls of the dead go.