AFTER you read, answer the following questions:
1. What do the symbols of the pit and the pendulum
represent?
2. What opinion does Poe communicate about the political,
religious, and social situation in the historical period in
which this story takes place?
“The Pit and the Pendulum” by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)
3. What Romantic critique is he making about the effects of
social norms and dogma? About technology and science?
The Spanish Inquisition was a religious court set up by the Catholic
Church and the Spanish monarchy during the fifteenth century to punish those
who failed to comply with the church or the royal authorities. This story takes
place in the final days of the Spanish Inquisition in Toledo, Spain.
In “The Pit and the Pendulum” Poe imagines the horrors of slow torture
that many endured during the Inquisition. The first person narrator recalls
being condemned to death by faceless judges and waking in a pitch dark
dungeon, where he narrowly escapes a fatal fall into a pit. He then falls
asleep and awakens to find food and water and once again loses
consciousness. When he wakes up again, he finds himself bound to a frame
and sees a pendulum descending toward him. He tries to set himself free by
calling on the help of rats. Once he is unbound, he rolls free and the dungeon
walls collapse around him and force him into the pit. At this point he is caught
by the strong arms of General Lasalle of France, whose army has just taken
Toledo.
As you read complete the analysis chart that follows.
AFTER you read, answer the following questions:
1. What do the pit and the pendulum represent?
2. What does Poe communicate about the political, religious, and social
situation in the historical period in which this story takes place?
3. What Romantic critique is he making about the effects of social norms and
dogma? About technology and science ?