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The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe: Full Plot Summary | Short Story
The Pit and the Pendulum
ABOUT THE STORY
The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
This is a short horror story by Edgar Allan Poe. It was published in 1843. The story is about an unnamed narrator who reveals his bitter experiences inside the Inquisition. After being sentenced to a dreadful death, he gets tortured a lot. This story is about his torture and struggles for existence. This story is so scary due to its given description. The major themes in the story are death, fear, time and survival.
FULL PLOT SUMMARY
The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe
When this story starts, we find an unnamed narrator. Here, the narrator informs all the readers that he has been punished for death at the time of the Inquisition. During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Inquisition was a Catholic government institution that was located in Spain. The main task of the institution was to punish the people, especially the Protestants or those who had different Catholic beliefs. After getting the news of the dreadful death sentence, he loses his consciousness and faints. Later, when he wakes up, he finds himself in complete darkness. He's confused to see his surroundings because usually, those people punished by the Inquisition are executed in a public way by hanging them.
At first, he thinks that he has been trapped in a tomb, but later he stands up and walks a bit. This mobility makes him think that he isn't inside the tomb but he might be in one of the dark, scary prisons in Toledo. These are the prisons where the Inquisition kept its prisoners. Later, he decides to look around. He tears off a piece of his robe and puts it on the wall. He wants to count how many steps it takes to walk around the entire cell. But while doing so, he trips and falls on the ground. He falls asleep on the floor.
When the narrator wakes up, he sees offerings of water and bread nearby. He eats them hungrily. Later, he continues to look around the prison. After walking for some time, he figures out it's about one hundred steps around. He decides to walk across the room. When he starts moving, the torn piece of his robe from earlier gets caught on his feet. He trips and falls again. When he falls, he gets the idea that while most of his body is on solid ground, his face is hanging over a deep hole. He becomes quite upset to find out there's a circular pit in the middle of the prison. To find out the depth of the pit, he breaks off a piece of the pit's wall and throws it inside so that he can get the idea of timing how long it takes to hit the bottom.
After this experiment, he assumes that the pit is very deep with water at the bottom. He thinks about how close he is to the pit and says that it's used as a sudden as well as surprise punishment, which is popular with the Inquisitors. The narrator falls asleep once again. When he wakes up, he again finds more water and bread. After drinking, he quickly falls asleep again and wonders if the water must have been drugged. When he wakes up, this time he sees the prison dimly lit. He gets the idea that he probably misjudged its size. He may be walking the same path twice during his exploration.
The narrator finds out that he's now tied to a wooden board with a long strap around his body. His captors provide him with tasty meat in a dish but no more water to drink. When he raises his head, he sees a painting of Time as a pendulum swinging on the ceiling. Time, however, has been changed into a machine, specifically a swinging pendulum back and forth. But when he looks away from the ceiling, he sees rats coming out of the pit and gathering around his food. When he looks back at the ceiling, he sees the pendulum look like a sharp scythe. This razor-sharp is swinging down towards him in a sharp curve.
The pendulum keeps on moving slowly but directly towards his heart. This sight worries him a lot. Still, he remains hopeful. When the pendulum gets really close to his body, he gets an immediate idea. He quickly spreads the food from his plate on the strap which is tying him down. The rats are attracted by the food and start climbing on him. They chew through the strap. Just as the pendulum almost reaches his heart, he luckily breaks free from the strap and avoids getting hurt. When he gets up, he sees a pendulum going back up to the ceiling. He thinks that people must be watching his every move closely.
Next, the walls of the prison begin to get hot and move closer to the pit. The narrator understands very well that if the walls close in completely, he'll have to fall into the pit and surely have to die. When there's barely any space left for the narrator, the walls suddenly move back and cool down so fast. The narrator feels so scared that he starts to faint towards the pit. But very unexpectedly, someone grabs onto him and prevents him from falling. It turns out to be a mysterious person for the narrator. French General Lasalle and his army have managed to capture the prison to terminate the Inquisition.
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