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Original Title:	The Pit and the Pendulum
ISBN:	0146000110 (ISBN13: 9780146000119)
Edition Language:	English

The Pit and the Pendulum

Edgar Allan Poe

Paperback | Pages: 56 pages

Rating: 4.16 | 56758 Users | 870 Reviews

Details Appertaining To Books The Pit and the Pendulum

Title	:	The Pit and the Pendulum
Author	:	Edgar Allan Poe
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Penguin 60s Classics
Pages	:	Pages: 56 pages
Published	:	September 1995 by Penguin (first published 1842)
Categories	:	Classics. Horror. Short Stories. Fiction. Gothic

Interpretation Toward Books The Pit and the Pendulum

”The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and other more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls.”


Simply superb illustration by Harry Clarke.

Our nameless narrator has been condemned by a panel of black robed, white lipped, stern faced judges. His crime is unknown, but then this is the Inquisition so his offense could be that he is not a Catholic or not religious enough or he might have been accused of one of the many offences against God that require such a low level of proof. The Inquisition was not only about condemning and punishing, but also these thunderously righteous monks seemed inordinately fascinated with eliciting the most psychological and physical pain inspired terror as possible.

The judges pass judgement but do not tell him how he is to die. If I knew I was going to be beheaded or hanged or drawn and quartered, at least I could mentally prepare myself for my death. Visualizing it would somewhat help me come to peace with it. Not to say I still wouldn’t void my bladder at the first sight of the gallows or the executioner’s blade or the bristling rows of rifles all pointed at my heart. Our narrator finds himself in a cell nay more a vault, with hideous pictures on the walls, damp stone enclosing him all sides, bundles of writhing rats, and a deep pit that seems to be an abyss into hell.

The pit is supposed to be his death, but he discovers it just before plunging to his demise. "’Death,’ I said, ‘any death but that of the pit’!" Hold that thought!

He swoons out of fear or from some mild intoxicant that they lace his food and drink with (pure speculation on my part), and each time he comes to his senses there is food and drink at his side. He is grateful for the sustenance, but this ratchets up the fear that he is so helpless that someone came and went without his knowledge.

Whenever I read an Edgar Allan Poe, I’m always struck by the way he puts a sliver of fear in the reader and, then in progressive paragraphs, continues to rend that sliver of uneasiness wider. He lets loose spiders of dread that run amuck in the mind, leaving tendrils of webbing behind that vibrate, jangling the nerves and firing synapses until they burn out like collapsing stars. I need a nap after reading a Poe story, but who wants to sleep with all those fresh nightmares crowding the mind, waiting to pluck the boundaries of your sanity like petals on a flower?

The pit may not have worked, but these resourceful monks have more tricks up their voluminous sleeves. Our plucky narrator wakes from another swoon to find himself strapped to a wooden framed bed, and something truly insidious is descending from the ceiling.

”The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard. As a natural consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But what mainly disturbed me was the idea that had perceptibly descended. I now observed--with what horror it is needless to say--that its nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor. Like a razor also, it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.”

My office was feeling a bit stuffy as I was reading this story, which might have been induced by feelings of being trapped, inspired quite possibly by Poe. I turned on the overhead fan, and as Poe describes the descent of the blade on the pendulum, I could feel my anxiety levels increasing exponentially. It took me a moment to realize that the hum generated by the fan was adding to my agitation. I stood to go turn the fan off, but then realized that, since I am probably healthy enough to sustain the higher terror levels, I should continue to allow the hum from the fan to enhance my reading experience.

***SHIVER***

To add to the narrator’s already high level of horror is something that is part of his nature, as it is of mine,...hope. It is difficult to believe, as dire as a circumstance can be, that this is truly our...final extinction. Something or someone will save us. Maybe even the God we have offended, according to the self-righteous monks, will intercede. As long as there is hope, there is the possibility of inducing more and more fear in the prisoner. Once a person has given up, accepted their death, adding more and more creative aspects of torture are futile and, dare I say, no longer entertaining.


Edgar Allan Poe

I often think of the nightmares of Poe. The demons that stalked the graveyards of his memories. The screams that must have emanated from his bedroom when a fresh horror had him by the throat. I can see him reaching with trembling hands for pen and paper with the beginnings of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth.

There are only about 6600 words in this story, but I was pleasantly surprised to have notated so many great, quotable lines. There are way too many for one review, but it gives you an idea of the power of Poe’s writing. I’ve read this story at least three times over my lifetime, and still every time I read it, I feel the chills racing up and down my spine. Now I need a nap, or better yet a double espresso.

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Rating Appertaining To Books The Pit and the Pendulum

Ratings: 4.16 From 56758 Users | 870 Reviews

Evaluation Appertaining To Books The Pit and the Pendulum

A man sentenced to death is put in a dungeon to meet the destiny set to him by his torturers. Doomed. Tic toc, tic toc. As a helpless spectator of the horrifying sight, the tumult of feelings kept unreeling before my eyes. all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night were the universe. Torn between Fear and Hope (though the latter only seemed to emphasize the dreadfulness of the situation) the agony is palpable. After

As the doorbell rings nearly incessantly and the frigid air seeps into my living room, I am all tucked up in a corner of the couch with my fluffy blanket, a glass of The Velvet Devil Merlot, and a book of tales from the master of horror, Edgar Allan Poe. I'm leaving the job of distributing candy to the hubby, while my teen son oversees the execution of his annual Halloween light and music show which grows increasingly elaborate each year. I can't think of a better way to spend the evening!The

I used to hear this short story from my history teacher in high school, Mr. Virgilio Amolar. i am not sure what was its relationship with "New Jerusalem", "Urbana and Feliza" and "Lemuria" but he mentioned all of these during our Philippine History class when I was 15. Now that I am old and starting to gray, I think Mr. Amolar is a crazy teacher who uttered all of this in our history class just to have something to say. Maybe he was fascinated by all of these.The Pit and the Pendulum is a very

Putting aside the histhoric context of the tale that is a accesory frame for the picture,the narration, we pass to review.The tale is one of the greatest romantic horror tales,told in first person by a condemned to death by the Toledo Inquisition, with the great prose of Poe.Is a tale about subjetive pass of time,about the subjetive terrorific reality in a sensorial deprived situation,a nightmarish voyage to the unknown next torture, and told in a sort of conscious stream of hopeles fear and

WHAT DO YOU MEAN MR POE?!!!? Time conquers all; it is an inescapable fate for all men: it cannot be defeated or avoided. Its a powerful, unshakable, enemy and a recurring theme across many of Poes stories. Ive seen it a few times now. This time it is a tormenter and a reminder of the incoming doom in the dark pit that is death. This is represented by the pendulum, sweeping like a minute hand, getting faster and faster as it approaches the narrator; it symbolises that death will be the end of

"To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me."Really good, suspenseful little story, told with Poe's deft touch of the macabre. Unlike most of Poe's other stories, though, this

Third Read, 8/2017: The story overwhelms me with such excited emotion. The work reads like a painting with more vivid reality that a digital picture. Out if this emotion I must say. Wow! What unbelievable talent! Why did I wait so long to get into Poe?"It was hope that prompted the nerve to quiver- the frame to shrink. It was hope- the hope that triumphs in the rack- that whispers to the death- condemned even in the dungeons of the inquisition." My favorite line, perhaps a main theme, and one