20 pages • 40 minutes read
Edgar Allan PoeThe Pit and the Pendulum
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1842A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Essay Topics
Poe often chooses to describe the narrator’s sufferings in excruciating detail—but right at the end, he holds back, and never tells us what the narrator sees in the pit. How does the relationship between the seen and the unseen shape this story?
Why might Poe have chosen the Spanish Inquisition as the diabolical villains of this story? What does a backdrop of religious fanaticism bring to the tale?
Take a look back at the narrator’s early reflections on dreams. How do his ideas about dreams, sleep, and unconsciousness relate to the events of the story?
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