payment page
The Power of Hope
Although the narrator has moments of despair, his ability to cling to hope pulls him through his terrible ordeal. When despair overtakes the narrator, such as right after the monks sentence him to death, he loses consciousness, as if in a reflection of death. The first time the narrator states that he has no hope of escape, he directly afterward stumbles upon the pit for the first time, nearly sealing his doom. He later loses consciousness after describing how he feels unable to fully articulate a concrete idea for escape—a sensation he likens to an inability to hold on to hope. Hopelessness, to the narrator, is comparable to death. However, the narrator never abandons hope completely. Despite initially thinking death by the pendulum would be a relief, he realizes that he nevertheless shrinks from death because of hope. He describes this hope as starting small, a quiver of the nerves, but this quiver soon turns into “the hope that triumphs on the rack.” Even in the most hopeless of situations, being tied on the inquisitor’s rack, he sees hope as something that can emerge triumphant. And indeed, it is this hope that inspires him to concoct his plan to escape the pendulum.
Tyranny versus Freedom
“The Pit and the Pendulum” explores resistance to tyranny, here embodied by the Inquisition. The shadowy inquisitors give no clear explanation as to why the narrator has been condemned to death. The lack of transparency evokes an irrational world, where guilt or innocence is decided on a whim. In addition, the Inquisition controls everything within the prison, from the amount of light to the shape of the walls. They drug the narrator and tie him down, limiting his bodily autonomy. If we read the pit as hell, the Inquisition’s attempt to force the narrator into the pit can be read as an attempt to coerce the narrator into damning himself, thereby accepting their judgment. Thus, the prison of the Inquisition is an oligarchy, where the selfish, irrational, and sadistic pronouncements of the inquisitors are the only reality that matters. The narrator resists inquisitors’ will by not accepting this distorted reality. He never once questions his innocence, and he refuses the pit. Even in the darkness of the prison, he explores his environment and evaluates his situation. He uses the spicy food designed to torment him as part of a plan to free himself from his bonds. General Lasalle’s heroic, eleventh-hour entrance—at once grand and dramatic—thus emphasizes that the spirit of freedom is ultimately stronger than tyranny.
Psychological Torture
“The Pit and the Pendulum” may allude to brutal torture, but it contains little on-page physical violence. Rather, Poe explores the terror of the threat of violence, and the psychological torture that results. Psychological torture attempts to undermine the human spirit and provoke despair. As the narrator explains, surprise and dread form a major part of the torments of the inquisitors’ prison, and waiting for what horror may come next is, in and of itself, excruciating. At first, the monks place the narrator in complete darkness, as if he’s already dead. When the narrator blacks out during the pendulum’s descent, they pause the pendulum, wanting to make sure that he is conscious and aware during the entire lead-up to his death. In their final attempt to coerce the narrator into the pit, the fact that the walls are searing hot forces the narrator into an agonizing dilemma. While his instinct is to avoid the pit, the searing heat inevitably forces him toward the abyss. The impossibility of the narrator’s situation eliminates almost all hope of reprieve. Psychological manipulation reflects the torments of the Inquisition, making the very act of waiting as painful as the physical torture that looms.
