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Torture and Torment in The Pit and the Pendulum You Can8217t Escape Death

In the Story The Pit and the Pendulum, the narrator explains that he has been sentenced to death by the Inquisition (the institutionalized persecution of all Protestants and heretical Catholics by the Catholic government in 15th- and 16th-century Spain). The reader however must not get Poe confused with the narrator because the narrator is the one telling the story while Poe is the author of the story. The narrator starts his story by saying he is sick unto death (180). The narrator here is trying to suggest that this sickness is the normal position of a human being; everyone is mortal. He recognizes this in the beginning. "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a story of torture. The punishments that the narrator is about to receive illustrate the power of humans to inflict pain and suffering on others. In addition, though, this story shows that the worst kind of torture is that of uncertainty and fear. Once the narrator understands that he will die from falling into the pit, it is no longer as cruel a punishment as the Inquisitors want to give him. Therefore, each punishment entails some element of pain, but, more importantly, a great deal of mental anguish before death. Unsurprisingly, the narrator finds comfort in trying to understand his environment and fate. He measures the room carefully because he wants to make sense out of his situation in order to ease his mind. His captivity is unpredictable and he never knows what is going and is totally unaware of his surroundings. However, he knows sooner or later that he is going to die. Upon receiving his death sentence, the narrator loses consciousness. When he awakes, he is in complete darkness. He is confused because he knows that the usual fate of Inquisition victims is a public "act of faith"--an execution normally taking the form of a hanging (183). He is afraid that he has been trapped in a tomb, but he gets up and walks a few paces, which makes him think that he is not in a tomb but p...

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