Edgar Allen Poe was a prolific writer with capability of inducing fear and awe among the readers, Edgar Allen Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum Happens to be in the same category.

Poe has dramatised the entire event of the narrator’s sentencing, the narrator is a sane man for whom the terror and psychological torture start only after he is sentenced and during the suspense of his trial. While he is being sentenced, Poe expertly describes the scene having 7 tall candles which melt and start getting smaller as his sentencing approaches showing loss of hope. Narrator says”I was sick- sick unto death with that long agony”. Poe highlights the superstitious, unkind, unfair and very religiously bound practices of the Spanish Inquisition. The fact that the narrator has been under trial for long, the hero does not see faces only their white lips, Poe appeals to the readers’ minds that these were evil people and the narrator is not. “I had no means of discovering the dimensions of my dungeon.”

“The dread of being buried alive.” But instead of giving up, the man decides the very thing any normal man would do. The dungeon or the prison, initially is a pitch dark room where the narrator is thrown, he begins exploring the place, with a sense of curiosity only to discover the pit which is circular shaped, which when exploring he gets to know more about the room. He saves himself from falling into the pit. He discovers rats in his room. But exhaustion takes over and the narrator faints. “I had swooned; but will not say all consciousness was lost.”
 “I saw that the crescent was designed to descend.”  Anticipation of death is more fearsome than death itself. The narrator however, does not despair, one of the most human qualities is to keep trying till the last moments. Poe uses this quality to the maximum in this story. Psychological torture is a genius outcome of the writing. 

 “I saw that the crescent was designed to descend.”  Anticipation of death is more fearsome than death itself. The narrator however, does not despair, one of the most human qualities is to keep trying till the last moments. Poe uses this quality to the maximum in this story. Psychological torture is a genius outcome of the writing. 

“I grew frantically mad, and struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar.”

The narrator remembers spicy and oily plates of food left by the guards, he somehow accesses the food and rubs food over his bonds, the food smell attracts rats and they gnaw at his bonds and just as the scythe is about to cut him. “They pressed - they swarmed upon me in ever-accumulating heaps.”

the narrator remembers spicy and oily plates of food left by the guards, he somehow accesses the food and rubs food over his bonds, the food smell attracts rats and they gnaw at his bonds and just as the scythe is about to cut him. “They pressed - they swarmed upon me in ever-accumulating heaps.”