The Pit and the Pendulum
and Other Stories
Before Reading
ACTIVITY 1 BEFORE READING
1 No 2 Yes 3 No 4 Yes 5 Yes 6 No 7 No
ACTIVITY 2 BEFORE READING
Encourage speculation but do not tell students the
answers yet. Ask them to think of ways in which
the various objects might be connected to the
different titles. The correct answers are:
The Pit and the Pendulum: a sharp blade, some rats
The Cask of Amontillado: a chain, some bottles of
wine
The Premature Burial: a broken coffin, an old sailing
boat
The Meeting: a letter, Venice
The Oval Portrait: a book about painting, an empty
house
ACTIVITY 3 BEFORE READING
Encourage students to speculate and to make
guesses, but do not tell them the answers. They will
find out as they read that the answers are 1c, 2b,
3a, 4a, 5b.
activities answers
This is Fortunato, and Montresor has just put the
chain around him before he begins to build the
wall that will shut him away from the world.
4 Can’t he see? It is happening in front of his eyes.
Every day I feel worse – I am getting nearer to death
every minute. He looks at me all the time, but he
does not see me. Now I know that his great love is
not me – it is his work. And because he loves his
work more than me, I will soon die . . .
This is the painter’s wife, and she has just realized
that she will die because the painter is taking the
life from her and putting it into his painting.
5 What’s happening? Why are you shaking me? Take
your hands off me! Am I – no, I’m alive! Thank
God! They haven’t buried me. Now I remember –
we came onto this boat yesterday. This is a wooden
bed, not a coffin. Oh, wonderful day! Perhaps now
this terrible fear will leave me . . .
This is the man who was afraid of burial alive,
and he has just realized that he is in a bed, not a
coffin, and his worst fear has not come true.
BEFORE READING ACTIVITIES (PAGE 44)
If students need help with this, encourage them to
look at links in the language.
4 engliShmAn: ‘Must you leave? Stay with me a little
longer!’
10 mArcheSA: ‘No, I must go. You know that I want to
be with you, but my husband . . .’
12 engliShmAn: ‘Ah, your husband. Dearest, we
cannot go on like this. Leave your husband!
Come away with me!’
3 mArcheSA: ‘I can never do that. If I leave him, my
father will kill me.’
7 engliShmAn: ‘Then there is no hope for us. But if
we cannot be together in life . . . there is another
answer.’
11 mArcheSA: ‘Another answer? You mean . . .
together in death? Do you really mean that? You
love me so much?’
9 engliShmAn: ‘I love you more than life itself. And
in death we will always be together.’
5 mArcheSA: ‘Ah yes, nothing can come between us
then. But – how can I be sure of your love?’
1 engliShmAn: ‘I will do anything in the world to
show you how much I love you. Ask me anything
– anything at all.’
8 mArcheSA: ‘Very well, I will think of something. I
will write to you – wait for my letter.’
ACTIVITY 1 AFTER READING
1 There! I have done it! My child – my dearest son –
is in the water, and I cannot turn back now. But will
he come? Does he truly love me enough? The night
is so black, and the water is so cold. He must come
soon – or I will lose my child, my love, my hope . . .
This is the Marchesa, and she has just thrown her
child into the canal, and is waiting for the young
Englishman to come and save him.
2 Are there any more prisoners here? What’s behind
these walls? They feel hot – and, yes, they’re
moving! Is that the door? Quickly – we must open it
at once! Ugh! There are rats everywhere, big and fat.
And that smell – it’s the smell of death. But look
– there’s somebody in the middle, near the pit. Can
I get to him in time?
This is General Lasalle, and he has just saved the
prisoner in Toledo.
3 Why has he put this chain around me? I don’t
understand. Perhaps it’s a game. Ha ha! He’s telling
me to put my hand on the wall – yes, it’s very wet.
But where’s that Amontillado? He said the cask was
in here, but I can’t see it anywhere. And what’s he
doing now?’
59 the Pit and the Pendulum and other stories
© Oxford University Press
ACTIVITY 2 AFTER READING
After Reading
oxford bookworms library stage 2
Stage 2
activities answers
6 engliShmAn: ‘And then, when I have done what you
ask, will you agree?’
2 mArcheSA: ‘Yes. Then I will meet you at that last
dark door.’
The Oval Portrait:
A Picture of Life
Beautiful Dead Eyes
Painted to Death
ACTIVITY 3 AFTER READING
ACTIVITY 6 AFTER READING
1
2
W
3
I
N
C
H
6
B
R
E
A
T
B
L
A
D
E
A
R
7
C
8
G
9
10
H
E
A
A
M
Open answers.
P
ACTIVITY 7 AFTER READING
E
4
5
D
Open answers.
A
I
N
T
E
A
R
S
H
E
N
I
V
A
L
R
A
V
E
O
V
A
L
R
T
The hidden words are death and terror.
ACTIVITY 4 AFTER READING
The picture goes on page 36, in the story The
Meeting
1 The young boy has come from the palace of the
Mentoni family.
2 He brings the news that the Marchesa has taken
poison and is dead.
3 The narrator has just realized that the young
Englishman is dead too, because there was poison
in his wine. And he understands that the two young
people were probably lovers who could not be
together, so they made a plan to take poison and die
at the same moment.
Possible captions from the text:
I tried to wake my young friend.
He, too, was dead.
Or students might like to be more imaginative, for
example:
Now the two young lovers were together – in death.
© Oxford University Press
ACTIVITY 5
AFTER READING
The Pit and the Pendulum:
Fire and Fear
To the Edge of Death
The Bed and the Blade
The Cask of Amontillado:
Montresor’s Joke
Carnival Terror
The Last Wall
The Premature Burial:
Everyone’s Worst Fear
The Not-Dead
A Dream of Coffins
The Meeting:
Love and Death in Venice
Together in Death
The Only Answer
oxford bookworms library staGe 2
60 the Pit and the Pendulum and other stories