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The Pit and the Pendulum

by Edgar Allan Poe

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Discussion Topic

Tension and Suspense in "The Pit and the Pendulum"

Summary:

Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" builds tension and suspense through various techniques. The first-person narrative limits knowledge to the protagonist's unstable mental state, creating uncertainty. The dramatic opening with a Latin epigraph referencing the Reign of Terror sets a foreboding tone, foreshadowing violence and injustice. The story's in medias res start and vivid descriptions heighten the reader's engagement. As the narrator regains consciousness in darkness, the unknown fate amplifies suspense, reflecting themes of fear and survival.

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How does Poe add tension to "The Pit and the Pendulum?"

One way that Poe is able to build tension in the "Pit in the Pendulum" is by making the narrator of the story the victim and protagonist of the story.  It's written in first person, so the reader only knows as much as the narrator.  Sadly, the narrator, and by consequence the reader, knows very little.  The vagueness and absence of detail is done by having the narrator swooning in and out of a stable state of mind.  For example, one minute he sees candles, the next he sees angels, and then everything fades out again.    

And then my vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white slender angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help.

Soon after he passes out.  When he finally awakes, he's in a new, unfamiliar location.  Have you ever woken up in a new, unfamiliar place?  I have, and there is always that moment of panic that rises up inside of me.  Then my brain catches up.  For the reader, that is what Poe has done by having the narrator wake up in a new location.  To make matters worse, the darkness is so complete that it feels tight and oppressive.  

At length, with a wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close.

I went down into the Carlsbad caverns a few years ago.  The tour guide shut off all of the lights at one point.  Even though I knew where I was and that the lights were going to come back on in a minute or so, it was still very creepy.  The darkness was so complete, that it felt hard to breathe.  That's what Poe describes in the above lines of text.  The darkness creates tension, because deep down, people are afraid of the dark. 

Poe also uses repetition to create tension in the story.  He repeats certain words or phrases to build tension in the reader.  The best example, I believe, is when the pendulum is working its way down to the narrator.  

Down—steadily down it crept. . . Down—certainly, relentlessly down! . . . Down—still unceasingly—still inevitably down! 

Every time I read this story, I feel myself beginning to read faster and faster as Poe repeats the downward movement of the pendulum.  Part of my brain is always screaming "just get there already!" so that I can know what happens.  Poe narrates inches of movement over paragraphs of space, and the tension just builds and builds, because Poe doesn't immediately answer the reader's main question.  "Will he live or die?"  That sense of unknown is a huge tension builder and Poe is a master at crafting it. 

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What occurs in the first four lines of "The Pit and the Pendulum"?

Before the story begins, we are presented with an epigraph in Latin which translates as follows:

Here an unholy mob of torturers with an insatiable thirst for innocent blood, once fed their long frenzy. Now our homeland is safe, the funereal cave destroyed, and life and health appear where dreadful death once was.

By beginning with some lines in Latin, the meaning is slightly less accessible and begins the story with added mystery. This is compounded by the note that follows:

Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.

Who were these Jacobins? This group took control of France in the early 1790s, growing more and more radical as time passed. Eventually, they just began beheading via guillotine anyone who disagreed with them. This became known as the "Reign of Terror" in France.

This epigraph furthers the mood that Poe is crafting, one that is dark, fearsome, and horror-laden. It is also a reminder that the Spanish Inquisition was not the only historical faction to employ torture and death to eliminate their adversaries. Thus, Poe crafts a narrative that speaks to the "Reign of Terror" of mankind's entire history.

The narrator of this story finds himself on the wrong side of the dominant faction, which has been the case for many people throughout history. His torture, then, speaks to the historical torture of mankind, as is alluded to through the Jacobins and the Spanish Inquisition in this story. As we enter the mind of the narrator in the next lines, we are immediately propelled into the mood created by knowledge of historical tortures and massacres.

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What occurs in the first four lines of "The Pit and the Pendulum"?

The narrator gives the impression, at the opening, of waking from a nightmare—but it's actually a new nightmare that is beginning for him. The robed figures surrounding him are Inquisition judges who have just pronounced his death sentence. What's unusual, perhaps even for Poe, is the way the reader is thrown off balance by this particular in medias res start, in which it's difficult to reconstruct what has already happened despite the vividness of description:

I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony . . .

With "that long agony"? What could he be alluding to? Only a prior knowledge of the Inquisition and its methods would enable us to grasp that he has already been tortured. The effect is slightly ironic that he is being unbound, and the reader must wonder, for what purpose now? We know that he's to be killed, so why are they unbinding him? This mystery, in the context of dreamlike imagery in which the robed figures appear like ghosts with their exaggeratedly white lips and the "indeterminate hum" of their voices, prepares us for the terror which will follow—but exactly what it will be the reader can only guess.

As is not unusual for Poe, the narrator describes his own literal act of writing the story on a white sheet of paper still not as white as the lips of his torturers. Does this tell us that he will actually survive the death sentence (as he will)? Not necessarily, since in another of Poe's most famous stories, "The Black Cat," the speaker is similarly writing his "confession" though his execution is imminent. Poe gives us this information as a tease. It enhances the feeling of mystery and strangeness in the bizarre opening in which, as usual, the line between reality and dream is so artfully blurred.

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What occurs in the first four lines of "The Pit and the Pendulum"?

In the first lines of "The Pit and the Pendulum," we are thrust into the middle of the dramatic story of the unnamed narrator. We learn that a death sentence had been passed on him, though we don't know why, and that he seems to have been granted a reprieve at the last moment. He is in a dizzy, dreamlike state, perhaps on the verge of fainting--"I felt my senses were leaving me," he writes. We learn too that he is in the hands of "inquisitorial voices," perhaps suggesting we are back in the days of the Spanish Inquisition, although "inquisitorial voices" can exist in any era. Finally, in his dizzy, dreamlike state, the narrator feels a sense of something revolving, such as mill wheel, a foreshadowing of what is to come. 

This beginning creates dramatic tension in several ways: By starting off in the middle of the action, or media res, at what appears to be a climax of the story, the reader is immediately hit with the emotional intensity of the scene and pulled into narrative, curious to know what has and will happen. Second this opening is in first person, which encourages us to identify with the narrator. We are witness to his emotions and his sense of disorientation. This heightens the drama, for we feel what he feels, see what he sees. Like him, we find ourselves groping for answers. Finally, with its talk of death and inquisitions and its uncanny, off-kilter quality of waking from a nightmare that may not be over, it creates an immediate sense of unease and foreboding. 

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What dramatic tension does the opening of "The Pit and the Pendulum" create?

This question refers to the four-line Latin epigraph that comes at the beginning of the story. The quatrain speaks of the Jacobins, a party of men who ruled France after the French Revolution. Although the Jacobins were moderates at first, they soon became despotic and initiated the Reign of Terror in France, where they killed their enemies wantonly with the guillotine. The quatrain was written in hindsight about the Jacobins, after they were no longer in power, and was purportedly engraved at the gates of a marketplace that was built on the site of the Jacobin Club House in Paris.

The first two lines of the quatrain translate as:

Here the wicked mob, unappeased,
long cherished a hatred of innocent blood. 

The actions these lines describe, and knowing they refer to the Reign of Terror, create tension in the story by setting up an expectation of a tale of hatred and bloodshed by forces that are as unstoppable as a "wicked mob." They also imply that the person or persons at the receiving end of the mob action are innocent. So from the beginning of the story, readers expect a horrific and unjust scene of violence by unscrupulous perpetrators on an innocent party. This creates tension.

The other two lines of the quatrain look beyond the end of the reign of terror: 

Now that the fatherland is saved, and the cave of death demolished;
Where grim death has been, life and health appear.

Even though this foreshadows a happy ending for the story ("life and health appear"), the reader doesn't know whether that happy ending comes in time to benefit the one or ones who are unjustly attacked. This creates additional tension: Will the salvation come in time? Obviously for many of those killed during the Reign of Terror, it didn't. 

Understanding the meaning of the quatrain and its allusion to the Jacobin Reign of Terror prepares the reader for a story of undeserved violence with an ambiguous hint at a happy ending. 

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What dramatic tension does the opening of "The Pit and the Pendulum" create?

In the first four lines of "The Pit and the Pendulum," the narrator indicates his wavering consciousness. Further, the narrator seems to also exhibit a character that is hallucinatory; so, there is dramatic tension created in the narrative because the lines between reality and what is in the mind of the narrator become blurred. 

These first lines of Poe's story set the moribund and horrific tone for the narrative. There is also a sense of utter despair with the phrase "sick unto death with that long agony." And, this despair is accompanied by the hallucinatory character of the narrator--

I felt that my senses were leaving me....the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum--

all of which suggest the narrator's unstable consciousness. Certainly, he is isolated and in a desperate situation. But, the reader must perceive this situation through the vortex of the narrator's agonized mind.

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How does the narrator regaining consciousness in lines 66-77 of "The Pit and the Pendulum" create tension or suspense?

Initially, the narrator recalls his experience and informs us that he has been sentenced to death. He recalls the grotesque forms of his judges. Before he passes out, he is so distraught that he suggests death might be a better alternative than what awaits him. So, this already establishes a rising suspense about what will happen to him: 

And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. 

The reader assumes that when he wakes up, his death sentence will be carried out. The reader is left to wonder about how he will be killed. When he swoons, he never completely loses consciousness. So, as he is carried down into the pit, in his half-slumbering state, he still is somewhat aware of things. He describes his descent: a "hideous dizziness oppressed me at the mere idea of the interminableness of the descent." It's as if he can feel himself descending into darkness. And when he does fully awaken, he is in complete darkness. The tension and suspense are peaked for him as well as the reader because he has no clue where he is. So, during the swoon (fainting spell) he has the horrible vague sensation of descending. And when he wakes up, he is in total darkness. He is in complete suspense at this point. He is suspended in space and time in the sense that the darkness gives him no sense of place or time. 

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