The story is set in the early 19th century during the period of the Peninsular War when the Catholic Inquisition was abolished by French Intervention.
Catholic Inquisition, also known as the Spanish Inquisition was established in 1478 by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. The legal authority of the Catholic Inquisition operated in Spain and in all Spanish colonies and territories including the Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples, and all Spanish possessions in South America and North America. Around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offenses during the three-century duration of the Catholic Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed. However, the Spanish King strictly ordered that the native Indians of the Americas should not be prosecuted by the Catholic Inquisition. The Inquisition was originally intended primarily to identify heretics among those who converted from Judaism and Islam to Catholicism. The regulation of the faith of newly converted Catholics was intensified following the royal decrees issued in 1492 and 1502 ordering Jews and Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave Castile, resulting in hundreds of thousands of forced conversions. The Catholic Inquisition was ultimately abolished during the early 19th century at the peak of the French Revolution.
Poe’s story does not critique the ideological basis of the tale’s historical context. Rather, Poe just highlights the torture and horror elements in this tale.
Summary of The Pit and The Pendulum:
The story begins with the shocking statement of the narrator “I was sick—sick unto death with that long agony” which reveals that he is a prisoner. The writer makes it properly clear that the narrator is a prisoner hauled before the Spanish Inquisition. He is too weak and dizzy to understand properly what’s going on around him, however, he knows he is about to be condemned to death, and he has no hopes. The narrator describes the implacable horror of the judges as they announce their decrees, although the narrator himself is too overwhelmed with fear to understand their words. He is hypnotically fascinated by the stark-white lips of his judges and the steady grind of their voices. The narrator tries to distract himself from the impending horror of the death sentence by concentrating on seven white candles standing before him on the table. For a while, he imagines those candles as seven angels who are there to offer solace or even rescue. But soon, he notices that these candles are mere inanimate objects, unfeeling, and uncaring. The narrator falls into a faint while longing for death. Though he is unconscious, the narrator claims that he wasn’t completely unaware as he had some consciousness left and says, “Even in the grave all is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man.” He says that fainting isn’t like sleep or death, rather, fainting is somewhere between those two, putting you closer to the mysterious world of the dead than sleep alone can.
When the narrator gains consciousness back, he finds himself in a completely dark place. He is confused because he knows that the usual fate of Inquisition victims is a public auto-da-fé, or “act of faith”—an execution normally taking the form of hanging. He wonders if he is dead or alive. He tries to remember what happened when he fainted. He dimly recollects being carried down deep into the earth by mysterious figures, the awful slowness of his own heartbeat, a pause accompanied by flatness and dampness, and then a fit of utter madness. He fears that they put him in a tomb, burying him alive. He tries to move a bit d finds that there is space, and is convinced that he is not in a tomb. Though he is aware that he is alive, he continues to feel the immense fear of death as he remembers the rumors of what they do to the prisoners. He thinks that perhaps he is in one of the dungeons at Toledo, an infamous Inquisition prison. Fearful, the narrator again faints, and after he awakes for the second time, he begins to explore the dungeon while wondering what his fate will be. He examines his robe and decides to tear off one of the pieces of the hem of his robe to check how much space is there in that dark dungeon. He decides to explore the dark and places the piece of hem against the wall to count the number of steps he can take across the dungeon cell he is in. He takes some steps and then he trips, falls, and is overtaken by sleep before making a full circuit, and upon waking, he finds that someone has given him a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water. Being too hungry for a long, he eagerly consumes whatever he got and then he resumes his exploration. He estimates that the cell is around 50 yards wide as he can take some 100 paces around. He then decides to walk across the room but when he moves a few steps, the piece of hem of his robe tangles his legs and he trips off. As he falls, he realizes that while his body fell on the wall, his face dangled over an abyss. He realizes that there is a deep pit just a little forward and had he not tripped off, he might have fallen into that pit. He tries to know the depth of the pit by breaking a piece of stone from the wall and throwing it in the pit. He feels that the pit is very deep and it has water at the bottom, like a well. He remembers the rumors he heard about the torturous ways of the Inquisition to kill the prisoners. He mentions the pit as a 'punishment of surprise'. The narrator falls back to sleep and when he wakes up, he finds some more water and bread. He eats it hungrily and after drinking water, he sleeps again. After a while, he suddenly wakes up and notices a dim light in the dungeon that was completely dark a while ago. He notices that the dungeon cell is not as large as he estimated. Perhaps he duplicated his count of steps and made a mistake. He further notices that he is now bound to a wooden log by a long strap wrapped around his body. He finds it difficult to move. He notices that he has been given more food and this time, he has been offered some flavored meat dish, but there is no water. He looks upward and notices the figure of Father Time painted on the ceiling. However, it is not just a painting, rather it is a machine holding a pendulum that is swinging back and forth. The narrator looks around and sees that some rats are coming out of the pit as they smell the meat. He again looks at the figure of Father Time at the ceiling and gets horrified. The figure of Father Time is made in the shape of the scythe and it is moving back and fro. The narrator notices that with each swing, the pendulum is coming down, nearing him while he is bound to the wooden log. He observes that if he doesn’t move, the scythe-like Father Time figure will drop exactly at his chest, above his heart. However, he notices that the scythe is moving downward at a maddeningly slow pace and he has ample time to see his death coming towards him as the trajectory of the figure of Father Time’s swinging motions from his head to toe. The scythe is making a razor-sharp crescent in its downward motion toward him.
The narrator is too much afraid to think right and he hopes for some divine intervention to stop the pendulum from falling over him. But the pendulum continues to come down and when it reaches very near to the narrator’s chest, he suddenly gets an idea of trying to save himself. He picks up the pieces of meat and rubs them over the straps binding him to the wooden log. The rats get mad at the smell of meat and they jump over him to eat and start nibbling over the straps. As the pendulum is just about to drop on his chest, the narrator succeeds in breaking the shackles of the strap and moves away from the pendulum’s swing. As soon as he goes away from the scythe, like a pendulum, the pendulum retracts to the ceiling. The narrator is startled and then he realizes that his captors are observing all his moves.
Suddenly, he starts feeling hot and realizes that the walls of the dungeon cells are heating up and gradually they are turning red. He further notices that the walls are gradually moving toward each other, reducing the space around the narrator. He tries to move away from the nearest wall and realizes that if he tries to save himself from the red burning walls, he will have to go near the pit and ultimately, he will be pushed into the pit that will surely save him from the red burning walls but will push him to another kind of death. He continues to move towards the pit bit by bit and when there remains not even an inch foothold for the narrator, the walls suddenly retract and cool down. However, the narrator is too afraid and he starts losing his consciousness again and feels like he is about to fall into the pit as he is just on the verge of it. Right at that moment, a mysterious person latches onto him and prevents his fall. The French Army has captured the city of Toledo and the Inquisition has fallen into its enemies' hands.
So this is it for today. We will continue to discuss the history of American English Literature. Please stay connected with the Discourse. Thanks and Regards!
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