Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies – Literature, grade: 2 (B), Martin Luther University (Anglistics/American Studies), course: Edgar Allan Poe, language: English, abstract: Edgar Allan Poe´s “The Pit and the Pendulum” was first published in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year′s Present (1843) and revised for publication in The Broadway Journal of 17 May 1845. Although by this time the Spanish Inquisition was officially over, the American public was still interested in such topics.
During the nineteenth century a fascination with death evolved. People were interested in gothic novels, were fascinated by horror stories, they loved tales that included elements of magic, supernatural and torture. This morbid fascination with death received its most intensive literary treatment at the hands of Edgar Allan Poe. In The Pit and the Pendulum Poe uses all the elements people were fond of: adventure, supernatural, horror, death, being helpless etc. He moves the sensibility of the reader and evokes a certain emotional reaction.
In this term paper I am going to concentrate on how Poe achieved a certain effect with his story. First I will take a closer look at the prisoner´s constant escapes, point out that most of these escapes are unbelievable and try to find out what the aim of his torturers might be. I will speculate on possibilities, what could have happened to the prisoner if he had made other choices during his stay in the dungeon. Then I will illustrate that there are certain parallels between a tomb and the dungeon in which the prisoner has to endure humiliation and agony, so the victim appears to be buried alive. Hope is the most important ‘property’ he has, it seems as if nobody could take it away from him, and with the help of hope he survives his stay in the dungeon. Whether the story is based on a real or on a dream experience is pointed out shortly. Finally I will present and analyze the symbols that can be found in the story. These symbols underlie and develop the aforementioned theories further, it seems as if the prisoner is not only buried alive in a tomb, but he seems to be in hell already.
The individual elements of this short story can not be separated totally from each other, as these said elements often overlap. Sometimes, I feel, it is not possible to discuss something in full detail in one part of this work, as the same elements appear later again in another context, where the discussion can assume new and different aspects.
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