Reflection: Pit and the Pendulum.

To start off this blog, I am going to give an overview of the story. The first thing the narrator discovers in this story is a pit. He throws a rock into the pit to see how deep the pit is, and the pit seems to be quite deep and I'm pretty sure there is water at the bottom too (Poe). It is scary because the narrator just wakes up in a dark room and is faced with a deep pit that he could have died in. After that, he feels that the rooms are closing in (Poe). This part makes me hold my breath a little bit because I am claustrophobic and the thought of being in a room that is closing in on me just freaks me out. There is also a pendulum that he discovers and it is slowly coming toward him. He begins to figure out the rhythm and the timing of this pendulum. Eventually he is going to die, so he just tries to mentally prepare himself before hand and he can tell by the sounds of the pendulum that it is getting closer. Right when you think that he is about to die, someone comes and rescues him and what a big relief that would be (Poe)!

The Pit and the Pendulum reflects the Romanticism/Dark Romanticism period very well for many reasons. One reason is because it mentions mythology and Romanticism in general uses mythology in the writing fairly often. The story mentions Hades-which we all know is the Greek God of death and death is also another theme that is very similar in this writing period and especially in this particular story! The whole story is about how eventually this guy is going to die and how he handles it. It is kind of like a poetic, old, written version of Saw. That's what it reminds me of at least, though I've never seen much of the Saw movies so maybe not. This story also features suspense. It keeps going on until that utter moment that you think he is gong to die ("Gothic Literature"). Then, there is also the mystery element to it; there are many ways that he could die and you don't really know which it could be and then it turns out that someone actually saves him ("Gothic Literature")! I also remember talking in class how even though Dark Romanticism is usually "Dark" it still can have a happy ending, which this one has since the protagonist is saved (Poe).
Psychologically, this short story deal with reacting to knowing that you're going to die. The protagonist in this has to think about his own death and that it was coming soon. He knew right when it was going to happen, too, because he could hear the pendulum swinging(Poe). This also makes the reader think about how they would act in this situation; having to be okay with dying a most likely painful death really soon. It can be an emotional adventure.


Poe, Edgar A. "The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe." The Literature Network: Online Classic Literature, Poems, and Quotes. Essays & Summaries. Web. 22 Jan. 2012. .

"Gothic Literature." Facts on File. Web. 22 Jan. 2012. http://www.fofweb.com/Lit/default.asp.