THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM

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HAS ANYONE EVER DONE A THESIS PAPER ON "THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM" I'M HAVING TROUBLE ON WHAT EXACTLY TO PROVE...BECAUSE..I CAN'T REALLY UNDERSTAND THE STORY...PLEASE WRITE ME AND HELP A.S.A.P...THANKS ALOT!!!

-- Anonymous, January 06, 2002

Answers

This is a story of man trapped and trying to survive. For Poe the experience of the greatest and strangest horrros that a tomblike destiny can inflict is second only to the ability of the rational mind to cope and work out the meaning and solution to the problem. (See his unique creation of the detective stories for this combination of the romantic sufferer and the scientist wrestling with the theme of death and danger). The ending seems brief and tacked on and definitely shows the defeat of the prisoner who is rescued at the last minute by someone outside. The usual double horror that the victim cannot survive(the pendulum he solves but not the pit except he will escape that by suicide on the burning walls). Poe's dilemma with insoluble problem of death, himself stuck in the middle losing the past and unable to touch beyond. Primordial yet seductive fear. Would Poe have preferred stopping with a tragic ending? Yet this man was sane and innocent and not trapped by the supernatural like the man in Ms. In a Bottle.

See other articles at www.eapoe.org, poedecoder and poecentral.

-- Anonymous, January 07, 2002


Yes & he's a victim of himself, the pit & the pendulum r both representations of his perversity.

-- Anonymous, January 11, 2002

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