Fear in The Pit and the Pendulum, by Edgar Allan Poe

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What is fear? Is it being in a prison so dark a person can not see in front of them? In this complete darkness the narrator finds himself eating and drinking, then passing out on a cold floor. When he wakes he is somewhere else in the dark cell. Or is it a cell? Could it be a tomb? Just when he thinks the cell is so big he finds himself almost falling into a pit. He eats and sleeps again. Where or how will he wake? Does he wake from his drugged food? In this story “The Pit and the Pendulum,” by Edgar Allan Poe, he tells the terrifying struggle of a man dealing with fear, torture, and confinement.

In this complete darkness the main character has no idea where he is. Could it be a tomb, or is he in prison waiting to be hanged? The unknown narrator shows fear by the opening of story when he states, “I was sick unto death, with that long agony, and when they at length bound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me.” (Poe 1.) He felt this way every time he would take a drink of what little water was left for him. He would drink it, fall asleep and wake up somewhere else. When he feels the walls are beginning to close in on him and he is going to fall into a pit, he realizes the water he has been drinking is drugged. It is when he stands up he realizes he is in a dark cell with a deep pit in the middle. At the bottom of the pit is water. “And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note, the thought of what sweet rest there must be in grave.” (Poe 2.) The character begins to think why am I here? Am I going to die here not knowing why? No one gave him a reason why he was taken and put in a dark cell. He knew it was the Spanish Inquisition but as far as he was concerned, he ...

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...ryday in fear they seem to lose touch with reality. Our minds are so fragile; it does not take much to make them break. We can see and hear things that are not really there. Our imagination can sometimes get the best of us. Is this what happened to the character in, “The Pit and the Pendulum?” Was he crazy?

Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Poe, Edgar Allan. The Pit and the Pendulum. Mankato, Minn.: Creative Education, 1980. Print

Blooms Literacy Reference Online. Facts on File. Web. Mar. 2010.

Giordano, Robert. "A short biography of Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)."

27 June 2005. 8 March 2007

Cherokee High School. :Literary Reference Center:. EBSCOhost. Web. 7 Mar. 2010. http://web.ebscohost.com/lrc/

Web. 31 Mar. 2010. .

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