Literary Analysis Of The Pit And The Pendulum - 773 Words

â€Å"The Pit And The Pendulum† Is A True Horror Story Stephen King once said, â€Å"We make up horrors to help us cope with the real ones.† Bram Stroker, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelley, and Edgar Allan Poe may have been a few of the greatest authors of horror to ever live. Out of all of these authors, Poe may have written the most freighting tales. All of his stories are considered horror, but some of them have more horrific qualities than others. â€Å"The Pit And The Pendulum† is one of Poe’s most famous works. â€Å"The Pit And The Pendulum† by Edgar Allen Poe meets three qualifications of a true horror story. One of these qualifications is that the story’s plot is more important than its characters. In â€Å"The Pit And The Pendulum,† the reader knows very†¦show more content†¦The speaker recounts their surroundings being tomb like, encompassing them in blackness and vacancy. The walls were smooth, slimy, and cold. This setting creates a feeling of dismay and uncertainty. The narrator says â€Å"The blackness of eternal night encompassed me.† This means that the tomb is dark as midnight and solitary. Feeling blind and alone in unknown surroundings is scary. If the description of the tomb was similar to that of a jail cell, it would not create the same sense of terror for the reader. At least in a jail cell, there are small amounts of light. Adding instruments of torture and a large pit into the setting also create a feeling of unease. Poe creates the mood of terror through the description of the setting. In a true horror story, the feeling of terror is often created by suspense. Suspense is the anticipation and anxiety of the unknown, which is a common factor in â€Å"The Pit And The Pendulum.† The narrator tells us that â€Å" I am sick- sick unto death.† This description of certain death creates the feeling of anticipation. Poe often uses repetition to create suspense. In this story, Poe creates this feeling by the lack of description. The reader does not know what the storyteller is on trial for. This creates the feeling of the unknown. Another part of the story that creates tension is when the narrator is exploring the dungeon. A feeling of complete solitude and lack of knowledge while in the tomb creates anxiety. The action of theShow MoreRelatedLiterary Analysis : The Pit And The Pendulum 1100 Words   |  5 PagesIndia Sherman Tanig English II Pre-Ap 7 November 2014 Literary Analysis Essay What is evil? Reading â€Å"The Pit and the Pendulum† by: Edgar Allan Poe, â€Å"Marriage Is a Private Affair† by: Chinua Achebe, and â€Å"Harrison Bergeron† by: Kurt Vonnegut Jr. shall give a better understanding of defining evil. Evil means to be profoundly immoral and malevolent in all these stories this is something all the antagonist share. They all have their own version of evil, either traditional and strict evil , or insidiousRead MoreThe Pit And The Pendulum By Edgar Allen Poe1703 Words   |  7 Pagesappeared swallowed up in a mad rushing of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, night were the universe.† This quote from â€Å"The Pit and the Pendulum† is an excellent example of how Edgar Allen Poe is a master at using point of view, setting, and conflict to display the thematic message of fear in his short stories. This example uses all three literary strategies. The setting contributes to the theme of fear by stating that th e soul was descending to Hades, the Greek god of the underworldRead MoreWilliam Cullen Bryant And The Devil And Tom Walker811 Words   |  4 Pages An Analysis of American Romanticism The romantic period,1735 to 1830, for writers is a dark and confusing time, it is a time when dark things are made to seem better than they are. Many great literary works come from this period, but at the price of confusing the population. People believe that â€Å"emotions and relationships were not just important, but were the very currency of life.† Three romantic era pieces stand out, The Pit and The Pendulum by Edgar Allen Poe, Thanatopsis by William CullenRead MoreFive Short Stories of Edgar Allan Poe Essay1311 Words   |  6 Pagesâ€Å"Thou Art the Man†, The Cask of Amontillado and The Pit and the Pendulum. The genre, the purpose and role of the narrator and the parallelism between all of the stories will be examined. The five stories can be split up into two groups by their genre: detective story and gothic horror. The detective stories are The Gold-Bug, The Purloined Letter and â€Å"Thou Art the Man†; while the Gothic horrors are The Cask of Amontillado and The Pit and the Pendulum. Poe gave birth to the detective stories weRead More Juxtaposing the Most Similar Contradiction in Edgar Allan Poes Work2077 Words   |  9 Pagesseem too apparent, they often overlap within a particular character and their situation. This is shown in the short stories â€Å"The Cask of Amontillado† and â€Å"The Pit and the Pendulum†. Each of the characters is blessed with a contrasting set of prosperity and ill. In â€Å"The Pit and Pendulum†, Poe creates one of his sanest characters and pits them against one of the hardest emotion to face, hopelessness. His character in this short story does not need to prove his sanity, it is proven by the carefulRead MoreLiterary Analysis Of The Cask Of Amontillado 1493 Words   |  6 PagesBrooke Womack Literary Analysis Paper Into to Literature: American I Dr. Julia Pond 12 October 2017 The Cask of Amontillado The Cask of Amontillado is a tale of terror written by Edgar Allen Poe. This short story is from the point of view from Montresor’s memory. The setting of this story is in a small unnamed European city, at a local carnival and then at the catacombs under Montresor’s home, around duck. The brief synopsis of this story is about the revenge that the Montresor, the antagonistRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe : A Gothic Romanticism Or Dark Romanticist1562 Words   |  7 Pagestime and Virginia being on thirteen. Through the help of a friend, Poe was given the job of editor to the Southern Literary Messenger (a job he kept from 1835 to 1837), along with having many of his works published along with his own criticm of other publihsed stories. One of Poe’s most fluental, and highly believed to be his most important, contribution to criticism was his analysis of â€Å"the distinctive genetic characteristics of short fiction† in which Poe review’s Nathaniel Hawthorn e’s Twice-ToldRead MoreEdgar Allan Poe : A Literary Catalyst2302 Words   |  10 PagesEdgar Allan Poe: A Literary Catalyst Edgar Allan Poe created a new age of poem and prose though his articulate calculation of production and fantastic usage of poetic effect. His way of creating a work was to mathematically draw the poem from the atmosphere or effect backwards, running this idea throughout the piece. Many people consider Edgar Allan Poe as one of America’s greatest authors, but still question that without Poe, the unveiling of the human propensity represented in poetryRead MoreCommon Themes of Edgar Allan Poe3152 Words   |  13 PagesAn Analysis of the Common Themes Found in selected works of Edgar Allan Poe A Research Presented to The faculty of the English Department In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in English IV By March 2010 Acknowledgement The researcher would like to thank the following people who help and give guidance to make this project To the Project adviser and the home room adviser of the researchers, who gave his outmost patience and time to check the drafts and format of eachRead MoreCommon Themes of Edgar Allan Poe3166 Words   |  13 PagesAn Analysis of the Common Themes Found in selected works of Edgar Allan Poe A Research Presented to The faculty of the English Department In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements in English IV By March 2010 Acknowledgement The researcher would like to thank the following people who help and give guidance to make this project To the Project adviser and the home room adviser of the researchers, who gave his outmost patience and time to check the drafts and format of each part of this very