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literary analysis on edgar allan poe the pit and the pendulum
the pit and the pendulum edgar allan poe literary devices
edgar allan poe pit and pendulum gothic
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In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Pit and the Pendulum,” written 1843, and “using the anguish of imminent death as the means of causing the nerves to quiver” (Edgar Allan Poe, 2015), he takes the reader into the mind of a man who is tortured by various means by some unknown person or persons for reasons that are not given. The themes of death and time are portrayed strongly in this story and produce a sense of anxiety and uncertainty. “The first- person narration, in which the ‘I’ remains unnamed, causes the reader to identify with the protagonist” (Myers 1922). I feel that the narrator remains unnamed for the reason of not giving information that would further distract the reader from the details and emotions of the pit itself, and not to be biased in any way. Most of the story takes place inside a type of prison cell that the narrator, who is the only prisoner, was placed in after some kind of trial. Because the amount of consciousness that the narrator has comes and goes, his seemingly dreamlike state hinders his ability to make accurate judgements, comprehend his situation, and decide how to best get out of his ever-changing torturous environment. Through the narrator’s almost hopeless states of madness and his shimmering rays of hope and decision making, the reader feels compelled to understand how the narrator got into this pit and how he would ever be able to be free given that his tormentors are ever vigilant and always prepared to bring a new device to try to end the narrator’s life.
When the “narrator discusses how the unconscious mind provides a glimpse into the gulf beyond,” this shows how Poe can try to explain how the imagination can work, and how it can interact with rational thought processes of...
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... reader much to fill in thus helping to create great suspense and harboring many questions about the Inquisition and the darkness within the minds of man.
Works Cited
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Poe, Edgar Allan, “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York . Random House, Inc. Sep. 1975. 246-57
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Myers, Eunice. The Pit and the Pendulum. Ed. Frank N. Magill . Vol 4. Pasadena , CA : Salem Press, 1986. 6 vols.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: The Modern Library 1992
The narrators in both stories were faced with copious challenges. But antithetically, the narrators both meet these challenges in completely different ways. While Brown confronted his challenges with despair and pessimism, the narrator from the Pit and the Pendulum faced his trials with optimism and bravery, which in the end gave him hope. From this one can say that an optimistic outlook and the will to fight are necessities in the great battle of life.
When a child is born, he or she does not see the same things an adult sees. The baby does not understand language and cannot make the distinction between races or gender or good and evil. While it is impossible to go back in time, novels allow readers to take on a new set of eyes for a few hours or days. They give a new perspective to the world, and sometimes provide a filter to the things seen in the world. Unreliable narrators give authors the flexibility to lie to and withhold information from readers, providing new perspectives into the narrator as well as the other characters of the novel. Authors use unreliable narrators not to give more information to the reader, but to withhold information in order to further character development.
Poe, Edgar Allan. "Joel T. Headley." Edgar Allan Poe Essays and Reviews. New York: Library of America, 1984. 589-593. Print.
Poe, E. A. “The Raven.” Bedford introduction to literature: Reading, thinking, writing. 10th ed. Boston: Bedford Bks St Martin’s. 2013. 789-791. Print.
...the Fragmentation of the Psyche: ‘The Pit and the Pendulum.’” Neneteenth-Century Literature. 46.1 (1991): 82-95. University of California Press. Web. 28 March 2014.
Magistrale, Tony. "The Art of Poetry." Student Companion to Edgar Allan Poe. Westport, Conn. ;London: Greenwood, 2001. 39-41. Print.
" Oil is the life blood of our modern industrial society. It fuels the machines and lubricates the wheels of the world’s production. But when that vital resource is out of control, it can destroy marine life and devastate the environment and economy of an entire region…. The plain facts are that the technology of oil-- its extraction, its transport, its refinery and use-- has outpaced laws to control that technology and prevent oil from polluting the environment…" (Max, 1969). Oil in its many forms has become one of the necessities of modern industrial life. Under control, and serving its intended purpose, oil is efficient, versatile, and productive. On the other hand, when oil becomes out of control, it can be one of the most devastating substances in the environment. When spilled in water, it spreads for miles around leaving a black memory behind (Stanley, 1969).
Grantz, David. Qrisse's Edgar Allan Poe Pages, The Poe Decoder. 20 April 2001. Web site. 17 November 2013.
Death, torture, and gut wrenching horror are all characteristics of the short story the Pit and the Pendulum. Written by Edgar Allen Poe in his waning years, the story has kind of a dark romanticism with evil giving it an eerie feeling. Poe wrote only a few more short stories afterward, and those stories were increasingly more gruesome. However, due to the descriptive language, this particular story leaves the reader with a dark feeling. Many aspects of Poe's stories after the Pit and the Pendulum involved some sort of torture and torment to either the protagonist or someone close to them. This story also utilizes a lot of symbolism. For example, one could view it as the suffering of one man at the hands of another. Then follow his progression into purgatory with the pendulum serving as his way to work off his sins. Followed by the turning point where eventually the protagonist rises into what one could imagine as heaven when the angelic French soldiers free him and show him the light while leaving the dungeon after an unknown amount of time. Although these are marvelous examples of symbolism in the story, Poe's use of another means to show symbolism seems more suited to the story itself. In The Pit and the Pendulum, the author uses torment and torture to depict the immorality of Spanish inquisitors, who maimed, tortured, and killed prisoners during the Spanish Inquisition, as well as the pits representation of hell.
Frye, Steven. Critical Insights: The Tales of Edgar Allan Poe. Pasadena, CA: Salem, 2010. Print.
The research on sex role stereotyping is currently growing. There are many theories regarding its existence. Some attribute the sex roles to the media, literature and society, but it is a combination of all these factors. Despite the best of intentions by parents to not encourage the sex roles, at the time of kindergarten, children will demonstrate behaviors specific to their sex. It is believed that this phenomenon occurs because the children know that they are either a boy or a girl but are trying to figure out exactly what that means (Seid, 114).
Redfield, J. S. "The Genius of Poe." Foreword. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. A.C. Armstrong & Son. New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son., 1884. xv-xxvi. EPUB file.
Poe, Edgar Allen. “The Pit and the Pendulum.” Poe, Edgar Allan. The Pit and the Pendulum. Mankato, Minn.: Creative Education, 1980. Print
Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Raven." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Eds. Nina Baym, et. al. 4th ed. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1995: 648-51.