Read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” You may have read this story in a lesson in the unit. If you did, take some time to review the story. If you have not read it, read it now. As you read the story, take notes on the following points:

the circumstances of the narrator’s imprisonment
the condition of the narrator’s prison
the narrator’s reaction to his prison and torture
historical references or allusions that appear in the story

Answer

The Pit and the Pendulum.Like many of Poe's stories, “The Pit and the Pendulum” is a dramatic monologue. Sentenced to death by the Spanish Inquisition, the imprisoned narrator finds himself in absolute darkness, in danger of falling to his death into a pit in the centre of the cell.

Ostensibly, the ending occurs when the French army invades Toledo and the narrator is saved from tumbling into the deadly pit at the very last moment by General Lasalle, who catches him just as he is about to fall.

Drawn by the food, the rats climb on top of the narrator and chew through the strap. As the pendulum nears his heart, the narrator breaks through the strap and escapes from the pendulum's swing.The narrator realizes that the enclosing walls will force him into the pit, an escape that will also mean his death.

Poe's narrator is saved at the end, dramatically, by “an outstretched arm” that grabs him just as he is about to be forced into the pit. The story ends with a reference to “General LaSalle“ having entered Toledo; LaSalle was one of Napoleon's generals during the Peninsular War in Spain.