"The Pit and the Pendulum"

"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. It is written in the writing style of Dark Romanticism. Like Romanticism writing, Dark Romanticism writing values emotion over logic and reason (Dark Romanticism). Dark Romanticism embraces illogical elements, and acknowledges the evil of man and the horrors of evil (Dark Romanticism). "The Pit and the Pendulum" most definitely qualifies as a short story of the Dark Romanticism Era. The story takes place during the Spanish Inquisition, with a soldier who is on a death sentence of being literally thrown into a pit (The Pit). This story portrays gruesome horror after horror for this poor narrator of the story. This story has a very evil background to it, and most readily acknowledges the evil of man and the horror of evil. Poe embraces illogical elements illogical elements within the story "The Pit and the Pendulum".

The story begins with the narrator of the story telling of what he remembers of his trial, which is very vague and includes the recollection of him receiving a death sentence (Poe). The story picks up with the narrator gaining consciousness and he recalls upon what he was thinking of.

"Then entire forgetfulness of all that followed; of all that a later day and much earnestness of endeavor have enabled me vaguely to recall (Poe 265).

As the man realizes he does not remember how or where he got to be where he is, he just as soon realizes that he does not know where he has been (Poe). This is the immediate moment where the psychological torture inflicted by the Spanish Inquisition begin to set in. The man becomes utterly afraid to open his eyes, and when he does, he finds to his utter dismay and horror what he had hoped would not be; complete darkness. Although weary and already worn out, the man begins to explore his new surrounding and discovers that he is in a pit. This seems to put the man into almost a sort of panic, when he realizes that all of the tales of the dreaded Spanish pit that he had once heard, were inevitably coming true in his life all at once. The psychological stress on this poor man is suddenly so intense it even seems to cause the reader of the story to go mad, just like the narrator himself (Poe).

From here on out in the story, the narrator is under extreme psychological and physical duress (Poe). He finds himself in a pit, knowing that he is facing death. The death is not what the man is under duress about, it is the torture that he knows is to come that daunts the man into his inner being. The man is shaken up and his nerves are unbound to such an extent that the pressure of the man can be felt by the reader of the story. After the man discovers a deep well of death, the man is struck with fear and shrinks to a corner of his cell. He knows that he is going to be tortured, but has no courage to kill himself by jumping into the pit (Poe).

"In other conditions of mind I might have had courage to end my misery at once by a plunge into one of these abysses; but now I was the veriest of cowards" (Poe 267).

The psychological state of the narrator is altered much by the constant conscientiousness of the torture that will soon be inflicted upon him. In fact, the psychological duress is more straining on the man than is the physical duress of what actually happens to him (Poe). This story is gruesome and twisted and is a fine example of Dark Romanticism writing.

Poe, Edgar Allan. "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. 263-273. Print.

"Dark Romanticism." Romanticism. Oracle. Web. 20 Jan. 2012. .

"The Pit and the Pendulum Novel Summary, Literary Analysis, Review." Novel Summaries Analysis. Web. 20 Jan. 2012. .