The Pit And The Pendulum Rhetorical Analysis Essay

The Pit and the Pendulum Rhetorical Analysis Project

Gothic Style is a type of writing that is characterized by elements known as fear, death, gloom, and very high emotion. Edgar Allan Poe demonstrates his use of the American Gothic Style in “The Pit and the Pendulum” by using strong detective fiction, horror and different gothic elements throughout his short story.

Poe is considered the father of American Gothic Literature. He uses several different tools that are categorized for the gothic style category. Poe mainly wanted his readers to focus on the plot and theme of the story, bringing the ambiguity if his characters and places.

In the beginning of the short story “The Pit and the Pendulum” Poe uses different gothic setting elements to write this short story. Poe uses the victim that can’t see anything, he is in a dark and unknown place. “The blackness of the eternal night encompassed me,” (“Poe” 3). This creating the fear of the unknown. The victim then escapes the doom but then falls into the pit. “I saw clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and congratulated myself upon timely accident by which I had escaped. Another step before my fall, and the world had seen me no more,” (“Poe”5).

He uses the victim escaping and then when he is free he then falls into the pit, the victim

Making the audience confused on why he isn’t scared on what is on the walls. The victim becoming so horrified and overwhelmed by all the emotion he is overtaking he then faints. “..fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my heart, and for a brief period, I once more relapsed,” (“Poe”3). When the victim gets overwhelmed by all the fear he has came upon and then faints it gives the audience a sense of suspense. Poe including this sentence it gives the audience more of an idea on how terrible it is at the