What is the theme of THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM?????

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2001

Answers

ESCAPE! Seriously, the Inquisition,the main character and how he got there, and many other natural details go by the wayside for the simple, almost manaical concentration on survival. Despair, mind giving way, lost time, darkness, indeterminate space, all weigh heavily on the narrator's attempts to "figure a way out." He keeps his sanity from one defeat to another, one shock of terror to even greater ones, having to surrender to some fears(moving, rats, the blade) in order to escape the worst. Finally when the pit shows terror worse than death and nothing else he can do, he plans to hurl himself on the burning wall. Well, there's always an option, seems to be his motto.

He is all process, no deliverance. The troops come in almost as an afterthought and bring the agonizing, ever escalating drama to sudden stop. Too exhausting to be a happy ending, proving the all importance of the mostly mental act of surviving the death chamber.

-- Anonymous, June 13, 2001

Yo!

The Pit is like the cavern. You know? The escape represents denial in its fullest form. If he escaped his will, he found a way. Damn I love this story. In the true form, Poe's honesty really comes to life. The way he describes the blade is so vivid, just like the time I got hit by a car. Damn... Jaben Tru!... homies!

-- Anonymous, April 23, 2003

No, the pit represents Hell.

-- Anonymous, October 24, 2003