Catching up on Classics (and lots more!) discussion

The August 2017 Short Story read is The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe, 1842, 56 pages.

Note this story is not 56 pages.

Nope, not 56 pages. I just read it online in about 15 minutes. :-) Loved it!

Great story. Very atmospheric. Bit disappointed with the abrupt ending though, just as it seemed to really get going.

I read this in high school and remember liking it. This time-not so much. I am a Poe fan, and was disappointed in this one.

If I ignore the last paragraph, then I can say I enjoyed this (very) short story. It was creepy, evocative, and gripping... and then trumpets blared -.-

Right? The ending was.... a bit off.

I read this as part of an anthology (Terrifying Tales) and this was actually one of my least favorite. I liked the atmosphere, but to be honest, I didn't really get it the first time around. And I agree, the ending was weird...

This short story kept me on the edge of my seat. I thoroughly enjoyed it! Five star read!

I know the ending was over the top, but it didn't bother me.

Even though the story doesn't match up with history, the extreme, jarring shift at the end still brought me to reality. If it would have stayed in the atmosphere of the rest of the story, I would have just finished and said--ooo, creepy, and never thought about real torture, if that makes sense.

This is my least favorite Poe story I have ever read, for a number of reasons.
As someone who majored in history in undergrad, then went on for a Masters in Medieval history, I cannot get beyond how historically wrong everything about this story is. I have been know to go into full on rant mode over this one. I think my rant can last longer than this story, not going to lie.

Even if I manage to ignore that for a few minutes, I still don't like this one.
The story feels disjointed and the ending is abrupt.

I agree with all the other comments about the abrupt and inappropriate ending, but I still enjoyed the story because nobody else does doom and despair like Poe.

I rather liked the story, but it seemed like the plot elements needed some work to tie things together more. Seemed more like a draft for a story that was never really finished. It certainly had a lot of mood and tension to it though! Poe was talented but perhaps not a disciplined writer.

I like Poe's talent at writing about anguish

Milena wrote: "I like Poe's talent at writing about anguish"

I agree Milena! So good!!

George, I agree: this seemed to need a bit more work.

I liked the ending...sort of hopeful...but jarring, like another poster said. It emphasizes the entire story.

I was impressed with the atmosphere throughout the story, gripping and anxiety inducing for all that nothing gruesome/violent actually happens.

This is the first short story I've read of his....and now I'm picking away at the others in the book :).

Taygus wrote: "I liked the ending...sort of hopeful...but jarring, like another poster said. It emphasizes the entire story.

I was impressed with the atmosphere throughout the story, gripping and anxiety inducin..."

I agree Taygus. The atmosphere kept me on the edge of my seat. Well said! Welcome to the Poe fan club! 😊

Just read it and loved it! I really like how suspenseful and dark it is, but I have to agree the ending is a bit odd compared with the rest of the story. It would probably have more sense if we had some kind of background story (something that would give the sense of realism to the whole tale), this way it seems like the ending is the lost fragment from something else, just placed there.

Katarina wrote: "Just read it and loved it! I really like how suspenseful and dark it is, but I have to agree the ending is a bit odd compared with the rest of the story. It would probably have more sense if we had..."

Glad you enjoyed it as well Katarina! 🤗

Anyone else notice religious symbolism in the pit and the pendulum?

Like the pit is another name for hell.

Or at the start the candles at the judges table is a wink at the book of revelations and the judgement of man.

The time line is during the spanish inquisition.

Perhaps the end, is another hint, the hope of being saved, being judged as good?


What do ye think?

(I ask this an athiest btw, apologies if the symbolism from the heretical story is offensive.)

There have been many famous allegories written throughout history. George Orwell with Animal Farm wrote one on the Bolshevik/Russian Revolution and the early days of the USSR. If you don't understand that, you're just reading an odd animal story. Right?

L. Frank Baum wrote one on US politics of the day. Oz isn't just the name for the land, it's the abbreviation for ounces, as in of gold, which the yellow brick road we're supposed to stay on symbolizes because whether or not to leave the gold standard was a political debate of the day. The greenness of the emerald city (Washington DC) was emphasized because this was where green cash was printed. The cowardly lion, brainless scarecrow, and heartless tin man all have corollaries to political figures. Without understanding this you just have a sort of odd child's fantasy tale.

Jesus is known to have taught in parables. Was Jesus just talking about a farmer's observations as he threw seeds on various types of soil, or is something else going on here?

Similarly, "The Pit and the Pendulum" isn't just a horror story about the Spanish Inquisition with an odd, unsatisfying ending. I see this story as a straightforward allegory for the Christian concept of life itself. I thought this point so obvious that I looked for a reference in Cliff's Notes or Spark Notes to bring in to buttress my claim and hoped just to link there for the proof, and the allegorical equivalents. However, after an extensive Google search on the internet, I'm coming to the conclusion no one else interprets this story quite the way I do. At best, commentators are only seeing the allegory small parts of the way. I'll go ahead then and try to explain it here.

I WAS sick -- sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit.

This first paragraph is pre-existence and the birth experience. Down the chute and out of the birth canal. The long agony our protagonist is about to be sick with is his life. As soon as we are born, we are then sentenced to die, be it in a few days or 90 years. People of the 1800s widely believed in a pre-birth existence that we all forget about at birth. Many religions still teach about this today, but usually as a subtext or footnote of sorts. Here, in the first paragraph, Poe is more obvious about it as he talks about what it's like to go from that pre-existence state to being born.

I love this sentence of Poe's:

but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became meaningless spectres.

Being born is leaving the wonderful spiritual world of our pre-birth existence to enter a world where cold, hard science reigns. Galvanism (as you can see from the Wikipedia article on it) was electrophysiology. Electrical shocks stimulating muscles and making them move as a beginning for the creation of life were the basis of scientific experiments that obsessed the early 19th century imagination. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is my favorite example. It symbolizes the start of life in this miracle-less, scientific world, which won't change until we're back in the grave.

The first five paragraphs describe infancy and forgetting our pre-existence state as we become attuned to the world we find ourselves in. Paragraph six, we learn enough muscle control to walk.

Most of the story itself it seems to me is an allegory for education, increasing self-awareness of the situation we all find ourselves in as a participant in living and struggling through this life. The pit symbolizes Hell, damnation, and sins, which we try to avoid. The rats are temptations leading us to sin. The pendulum is literally time, but it is attached to the ceiling, so it comes from God. It's the time God allots us here on Earth. Our aging is the awareness of the pendulum lowering towards us. And so on and so on.

Okay, what about that ending? Well, ever since it was written Poe's ending has been considered a problem with his story, often even a flaw. In writing classes all over the country this story is the main one I know of that is given as the classic example of the deus ex machina mistake writers are to avoid at all costs. The phrase literally means "God comes from the machine" and is used to describe those endings where some force that hasn't been in the story enters at the last minute to save the day, and in the process ruins the entire basis and internal logic of the story, just to give it a sudden, phony happy ending the story didn't sufficiently build towards.

The deus ex machina is perceived as a writer's cheat. It's a writer doing something like this: "and just as our hero was about to go over the edge of the waterfall in a barrel that was coming apart, a passing by good fairy plucked him out and set him down on the shore, thus saving the day. The villain was foiled; our hero married his sweetheart and the two lived happily ever after. The end."

However, isn't this exactly the ending of all our lives that Christianity promises us so long as we do what is required of us? I think if we understand Poe's story as an allegory, we can then better understand the logic of Poe's ending and forgive him his deus ex machina "error". What is the ultimate deus ex machina of life itself? One could argue, and I think Poe does, that it is the logic of believing in an afterlife, going to Heaven as being the sequel to our life's existence here. The ending is to me like Poe saying, "Okay all you religious people who 'know' you are 'going to a better place' once it's all over in this world, here's how your ending actually works in practice. Does it still make perfect sense to you as the most reasonable sequel for all we suffer in this life? If so, you have to like this ending I just put on my short story, and it should make perfect sense to you because it's the ending you believe in for yourself."

I personally think Poe's ending perfect for an allegory of the Christian concept of life.

There is a lot more symbolism in the story I haven't touched upon, a lot of things in the middle of the story that tie in to various stages we all go through in life, key realizations about our status and state. There's also a lot of Book of Revelations symbolism most people knew about in Poe's day that we (including me) are probably less familiar with now. General Lasalle I think must be Jesus at the second coming saving all Christians who have been dead and waiting for the Rapture.

Again, although I don't think I am, it's possible I could be all wrong about all this. What I just wrote is simply my analysis. I tried but could not find any backup or support for my interpretation from more advanced, scholarly analysts. I offer my take in the hope it helps shed some light on what I believe Poe was up to. Realizing this has enhanced my appreciation of Poe's story. May it do so for you too.

Poe does not make for happy reading but I love everything about his stories, the rich style, the darkness, the suspense.
I think my favorite part of the Pit and the Pendulum in particular is early on "even in the grave all is not lost", as Poe's character struggles to face his own mortality

Wow, Dan, I enjoyed that, now I need to read the story again.

Dan, that certainly was very illuminating! As an atheist, I would not have known the allegory to Christianity in detail. Nobody quite builds up the Gothic atmosphere like Poe.
Like Sarah, I was a bit miffed about the gross historical inaccuracy-I am no historian, but I have a morbid interest about the Inquisition.
Regarding the various types of torture the Inquisition subjects him to, I think the nothingness, the numbness, more accurately called sensory deprivation scared the narrator the most. He was scared about that pit, the scythe, and the sulfurous light, but he was terrified about the void. That is why he tries desperately to focus on mundane details like the yards of the floor, the angles, and the like. The changing reality-one moment the dungeon cell was vast, later shown as half the supposed measurements, finally closing in on him-really dramatized the story for me.
This may sound a bit stupid but I think showing General Lasalle as an actual person, an allegory of The second coming of Christ, is not just realistic, but also symbolic of his faith.

Dan wrote: "There have been many famous allegories written throughout history. George Orwell with Animal Farm wrote one on the Bolshevik/Russian Revolution and the early days of the USSR. If you don't understa..."

"However, isn't this exactly the ending of all our lives that Christianity promises us so long as we do what is required of us? "

This is what I was trying to get across.


"Okay all you religious people who 'know' you are 'going to a better place' once it's all over in this world, here's how your ending actually works in practice. Does it still make perfect sense to you as the most reasonable sequel for all we suffer in this life? If so, you have to like this ending I just put on my short story, and it should make perfect sense to you because it's the ending you believe in for yourself." "

And I'm going to thank you for this too, as this is what I was thinking but struggling to explain.

I very much appreciate your post as ia also what I saw in Poes Story.
I googled it too and was disappointed that I couldn't find any essays on it.

Very insightful comments Dan.

Maybe the suddenness of the ending could also represent the suddenness of death. We know it's going to happened sometime but we never know when - and (without wishing to tempt fate) it's often earlier than we expect!

Thank you, Dan! I really appreciate your explanation of the allegory.

I still prefer to read the story as about the hell on earth that torture can be, and the triumph of hope--religious or otherwise.

Carlo wrote: "Maybe the suddenness of the ending could also represent the suddenness of death. We know it's going to happened sometime but we never know when"

I like it! Your analysis sounds right to me.

Thank you for the kind comments all.

I forgot in my earlier post to talk about the introductory quatrain:

Impia tortorum longas hic turba furors
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.

Translated:

"Here an unholy mob of torturers with an insatiable thirst for innocent blood, once fed their long frenzy. Now our homeland is safe, the funereal cave destroyed, and life and health appear where dreadful death once was.''

This one took me a while to figure out, but I think it's the narrator speaking after having been saved by General Lasalle--in other words, speaking to us from Heaven. The people with an "insatiable thirst for innocent blood" are literally the Romans who killed Jesus along with their support structure among the Jews. What is the equivalent in Poe's time? I think it's the U.S, government (along with state, local, and church officials, maybe even family obligations) being compared to torturers while we live, but who once we die have all they wanted from us and thus no longer have meaning. We are safe in Heaven. Our coffin (funereal cave) is long gone (decomposed). What we once (when alive) saw as death now (that we are dead) appears to us as life from the other side.

Poe portrays the Christian view of the afterlife as an end to struggle against the Adversary, but sees our life here on Earth as one long struggle of first one type, then another.

Having failed to fall, it was no part of the demon plan to hurl me into the abyss, and thus (there being no alternative) a different and a milder destruction awaited me.

The pit clearly symbolizes Hell. The Adversary tries to get us to fall into it of our own free will by doing evil and earning death. He won't push us. We have to do the work ourselves. If we avoid it, then there is the other trap. The approaching of old age and the recognition we must die. We weren't aware of the swinging pendulum when we were born: "upon again lapsing into life, there had been no perceptible descent in the pendulum."
We gave it no attention during younger days, but as old age approaches our awareness of our time left (the swinging pendulum) grows, thus causing us to fixate on our approaching end.

"Down—steadily down it crept."

With the end steadily approaching, fear of the rats (sin, temptation) seemed pointless. So our protagonist embraced it only to find himself fallen into the more sophisticated trap.

"Free!—I had but escaped death in one form of agony, to be delivered unto worse than death in some other."

Poe goes on to describe how age entraps us in our physically aging (thus decaying) bodies of less and less use as the new kind of subtler Hell. Escaping death in the pit (by avoiding sin) leads to this new death by old age until....

I shrank back—but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward. At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison.

And then the physical death of old age occurs, but it's really General Lasalle beating the Inquisition (the Inquisition is a symbol for life and its struggles) to free our protagonist and take him to Heaven.

The fiery walls rushed back! An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting, into the abyss. It was that of General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.

Wow Dan, your interpretation really adds a lot to the story, like Bob I think I'm going to have to go back and read it again! Thank you so much for sharing it with us :)

Was I the only one who shrieked out loud when the rats came onto his body? The building of tension was very creepy and seemingly endless and then the quick ending. I kind of liked that.

My final review based on what I wrote here at this group: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have a scorpion caught in the light fixture in my shower and since I am not tall enough to reach it, it will stay there until my son comes next weekend. When I turn on the light he starts to run around franticly. The sides are slick and he cannot get out. I looked up how long they can survive without food and it says a year! I figure he gets some water from condensation with my shower. Last night when I was showering looking up (because who knows, he might figure out how to get out) I thought how similar it is to this story.
No pendulum for him-he is in the pit!

I found this an interesting read, the darkness and the torture of entrapment is well described. I didn't "get" all the symbolism so it is wonderful to read other folks' comments and insights

I think I would like to believe that Dan's analogy is a correct on this short story. Makes so much sense, however, I would not have come up with it on my own. When you go back after reading, as Dan has done, it is not difficult to see how it all fits together from beginning of life, life as we live it in the time we are in this world, and leaving this world is the final end of the trauma and torture, being ended by the grace and glory of God!

I found this to be very slow to begin with. I was a little bored, but then it drew me in. I had to get to the end although that was a little anti-climactic. Nevertheless, I'm not sure that he could have drawn this to a close in other way.

Taygus wrote: "I liked the ending...sort of hopeful...but jarring, like another poster said. It emphasizes the entire story.

I was impressed with the atmosphere throughout the story, gripping and anxiety inducin..."

I started reading this late at night, so i didnt yet finish it because of some of my worst fears. This actually reassures me. I will try to finish it today.

I actually thought i had read this one before, as much as ive heard about it over the years, but reading it now, i dont know that i actually ever did. Wonder if i heard misconcwptions about it making me super scared. Cries.

I'm glad I popped into this thread. It has been many, many years since I read this story, although I have read it more than once. I think, after reading Dan's astute take, I will need to visit it yet again.