The Pit and Pendulum

Chelsey Wilkins

Edgar Allen Poe is a nation-wide known author. He has been accounted for contributing to the literature of short stories, however to spice up his accomplishments, he writes numerous spine-tingling short stories of horror and suspense. “The Pit and the Pendulum” was written during the time of the Spanish Inquisition, which would explain the capital punishment Poe was doomed for. Beyond his accomplishments, he was a man who believed death is not the end of man, simply survival of death means life is just an interpretation of your true spiritual existence.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, different from many, lacks supernatural elements. Thus, making the way he described the place and condition he was in more interesting. Sensation, a fiction-writing mode for portraying a character’s perception of senses, is the main form of imagery appealed to. Poe notes how the dungeon is airless and unlit, not because he read about it but because maybe breathing had become more difficult for him, and how he is unable to see a stitch of light. His sensation allowed his audience to envision what position he was in, and what was around him. Sensation also reminded Poe about the possibilities of dehydration and starvation in the torture chamber.

Poe could be described as an analytical person, which made appealing to logos almost automatic to him. Before taking action, Poe takes the time to analyze possible outcomes of where he is, what he could be in, or what could possibly be around him. Poe, accompanied by logic, was able to advance from his theory of being in a tomb to actually figuring out he is in a torture chamber. Observing his surroundings, led him to know that the pendulum was decreasing, which left his logic to consider like hey eventually this swinging pendulum will crush me. Logic was the single-handed reason Poe was able to tell his story today.

Irony could be described as a literary or rhetorical device, in which there is discordance between what one says or does compared to what will actually occur. I found the short story to have suspense that made you have to keep reading, to end ironically with Poe’s survival. I thought as the story went on, the more we found out about his where abouts, alongside the barriers of death, his survival chances were slim to none. Fortunately, I was proved incorrect, just when I thought there was no other way out, that this must be the end, the ironic appearance of the French general proved me incorrect. This type of suspense and irony is what makes the story so good.

To conclude, the Spanish Inquisition was known to be bloody and brutal. Little did I know about the great aspect of history, Edgar Allen Poe wrote about it. The short story was filled with suspense and rhetoric devices. I enjoyed reading the short ironic story about overcoming a torture chamber, but most of all reading the views of someone who thought they could overcome death.