The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe has quite a fitting title. The short story begins in what is most likely somewhere in Spain during the Spanish Inquisition. Initiated by Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish Inquisition includes the torture of Jews and Muslims who would not convert to Catholicism (Ferdinand). The main character, and narrator who is not named through out the short story, begins describing his inevitable hearing in a court room, in front of "robed judges" (Pit 263). He comments on how he is so scared that he can barely understand what they are saying to him. While waiting for their ruling, he, for some reason, thinks about forms of torture that may be coming to him after the judge's decision (Pit 263). The decision is finally made, and the judges leave. When the narrator finally regains some form of consciousness after fainting from extreme emotion, he doesn't immediately recognize his state of being. The narrator cannot figure out if he is dead, or if he is still alive but consumed by darkness. This is creates a very scary situation that Poe uses to portray his Dark Romanticism writing style characteristics, which he does very often. The narrator has seemed to be mentally alive, but physically dead. The fact that he is aware of this is a very frightening concept, leading the style back to Dark Romanticism characteristics.
When the narrator finally realizes that he is not dead, he begins to feel around to figure out where he is. He describes that the floors are covered in slime, and he even falls to find his head suspended over a seemingly bottomless pit (Pit 267). The narrator realizes that he just escaped death by falling just a few inches from the pit, which he has decided is his impending doom. After he sleeps for a while longer, he awakes and sees a pitcher of water and a loaf of bread next to him. He can't help himself, and after drinking the pitcher of water, he passes out again. It must have been drugged (Pit 267). The narrator finds himself bound to wood with a blade suspended above his head. After imagining his death once more, this time in a different way, he notices that the blade has lowered towards him. He also notices that there are giant rats near him. When the blade reaches only 3 inches from his body, the narrator finally "thinks" for the first time in days. (Pit 271). Thinking that the blade will surely cut his bandages before his body, he creates a plan and escapes from his impending doom, once again. As soon as the narrator realized that he was free, he also realized that the figures on the walls were very pronounced (Pit 273). The temperature began to rise, and the narrator found himself in another death situation. The temperature became so hot, but finally the sound of trumpets burst in and the narrator was saved from death (Pit 273).
The Dark Romanticism side of this short story is a mental and psychological game. The narrator faces through out the story choices of death. He is basically forced to choose his own death, which is such a terrible and stressful thing to have to deal with. Not only is he going to die, but he has to decide how it is done. Through out the story, the narrator is faced with near death experiences, and immediately after he escapes one death, another is thrust into his life. The happy ending of the story seems to be happy, but it really just adds to the psychological distress put on the man. He was so prepared to die that he was going to thrust himself into a bottomless pit, but at the last second he is saved. The emotional toll put on the narrator wold have been so great, and he even though he wasn't killed, he still endured cruel and sick torture.
"Ferdinand V." American History Online. Facts On File, Inc. http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?
ItemID=WE52&iPin=lbio0049&SingleRecord=True (accessed January 19, 2012).
Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Comp. Jeffrey D. Wilhelm, Ph.D. and Douglas Fisher, Ph.D. Glencoe Literature. American Literature ed. Columbus: McGraw-Hill Companies, 2009. 261-277. Print
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