The Pit and the Pendulum: Tortured Yet Hopeful

Mumu digs into one of Poe’s most influential pieces. THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM has touched everything from the stage, to the screen and music, but why?

TITLE: “The Pit and the Pendulum” (pgs 250-270  from Great Tales And Poems Of Edgar Allan Poe)

AUTHOR: Edgar Allan Poe

GENRE: Dark Fiction

PAGES: 20

FORMAT: Paperback Book

PRICE: US $5.95 / CAN $6.99

Torture has no limits. “The Pit and the Pendulum” is  set during the Spanish Inquisition, where accusations of being a heretic caused unimaginable torture. No matter what the guilty were accused of, they were still sentenced to gruesome deaths. Yet, somehow, the narrator had small hope held onto; either by design to drive him even further into despair or how his mind was doing its best for survival I will never know.

The narrator of this tale used his senses and counted his steps to remain sane while he had no idea if he would survive tomorrow. He used his clothing to mark his starting point and began walking until he collapsed from his hunger. His tormentors let him starve before, yet when he came to, they left him bread and water, extending his hope for survival. In truth, that seemed cruel as they still planned to kill him in the end, slowly and painfully. Yet giving him that helped him survive for more mental torture. He found himself at the edge of a pit, inch by inch as he made his way around  the room. He was able to get a stone loose, hearing it fall into the pit to create a splashing noise.

I found it very attention grabbing how Edgar Allan Poe wrote this piece; I could feel the mental torture pouring from the narrator by him counting his steps, turing them into yards or paces, realizing his human error in real time as danger seemed to always approach… Jumping from one mental extreme to the next, even getting hope for survival, really causes a mental strain; I would assume similar to an emotional whiplash.

In the end, the narrator gets drugged by his drink, making him fall deep asleep while they hook him up to a table, holding him in place as a pendulum-like blade swung overhead, aiming to cut him in the middle. At one point, it does cut into his skin, yet he still held onto hope; eating something that a rat was eating to survive. It was odd, but he found hope during those small moments of his rebellion, in a sense; refusing to die without a full fight. Yet him holding onto that hope saved his life as someone stopped the torture, claiming they were the enemies of the Inquisition. Therefore, this was a survivor’s tale, and how he described his mental torture sent chills down my spine.

It’s amazing what the human psyche does in order to survive; counting steps to figure out the length of a room, for example; exploring with sight and touch as carefully as they can, trying to find information on their surroundings to hold onto some sort of sane thought they had left. I suppose that is what makes us human after all; finding hope in the hopeless of situations. Poe really captures how torture is designed to strip one of their humanity while they hold desperately onto their hope for survival.

Mumu the Tricked loves to read and write. It’s easier to sit still and work with their eyes and hands than move around some days. They are hoping to become a successful author and book reviews are quite fun, too. Thank you!

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.