What do the candles in The Pit and the Pendulum represent?
Candles: Represent the judges and time; they turned from symbols of angels to “meaningless spectres” that will burn down as does any hope of escape or survival from the torture chamber.
Who is the antagonist in The Pit and the Pendulum?
The Catholic church was attempting to eradicate “heretics” through grisly means. They are the antagonists because they have a goal contrary to the protagonist (they want him to die, and he does not want to) and we do not root for them to succeed.
How does the protagonist find the pit in the pit and the pendulum?
He stumbles and falls face first on the floor because the rag is entangled in his feet. This saves him from the pit which is directly in front of his face. If he had taken a few more steps, he would have stepped right off the edge and landed at the bottom.
What is the rising action of the pit and the pendulum?
In “The Pit and the Pendulum,” however, readers view the action through the eyes of a presumably innocent man condemned by the sinister, unjust judges of the Inquisition. The story’s rising action relates his macabre tortures, first by a bladed pendulum and finally by the movement of the cell’s red-hot walls.
What is the setting in the pit and pendulum?
”The Pit and the Pendulum”: Setting ”The Pit and the Pendulum” is set in a prison cell in Toledo, Spain, during the Spanish Inquisition.
Where was the pendulum positioned?
For the pendulum, the bob moves back and forth. This back and forth motion is called “oscillation.” Its position is said to oscillate back and forth.
What is the point of view of the pit and the pendulum?
“The Pit and the Pendulum” is written from a first-person point of view, in which the narrator uses such pronouns as I and me. The narrator’s point of view can be limited, in which the narrator can reveal the private, internal thoughts of himself or herself or of a single character.
Who is the protagonist in the pit and pendulum?
The protagonists in The Pit and The Pendulum are the judges or the inquisition. They are the protagonist because they have a goal of torturing and killing the narrator. The narrator is then the antagonist because he is trying to prevent the protagonists from achieving their goal.
What was in the pit in the pit and the pendulum?
In this story, Poe has shown himself to be a master of achieving the effect of mental torture and horror as the narrator is offered a horrible choice of death: He can plunge to death in a bottomless pit of unknown horrors filled with ravenous rats, or he can wait and be sliced up by the razor-sharp pendulum — or he can …
What is the irony of his sudden freedom?
What is the irony of his sudden freedom? The rats ate through his binding which allowed him to escape the descending pendulum. It’s ironic because he’s not actually free.
What are three ways that the narrator’s captors attempt to kill him?
Answer
- 1) falling into the pit.
- 2) being sliced open by the blade/pendulum.
- 3) being crushed by fiery walls closing in on him.