Pit And The Pendulum Literary Analysis

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Recommended: Theme of life and death in literature

The Power of Hope Throughout the literature studied in this course, it is evidence that all of the characters have hope, but what they choose to do with that hope is what sets them apart. From the man in the Pit and the Pendulum hoping to not die in the horrid dungeon, to Cal in Until They Bring The Streetcars Back by hoping he can help Gretchen with her utterly unholy father, to finally the man in The Raven and hoping to see his lost love Lenore. Hope, has almost seen it all. In the Pit and the Pendulum the main character is locked in a dungeon to await his death, but come to find out the dungeon is where he is supposed to die. He walks around the room only to trip and find a giant pit in the floor, he is very lucky to not have fallen in …show more content…

They won’t come back no matter how much hope there is. The man in The Raven is devastated that someone he loved has died. All he does is hope to see her, he yearns to see her. He hopes to see her so much that when he hears a knock on his door he thinks it’s his loved one, Lenore. When he hears a knock at the window he goes and opens it, to have a raven to fly into his room. The man asks the raven what its name is, and all it says to him is, “Nevermore”. He asks the raven more questions and all the fowl has to say is “ Nevermore”, finally the man starts to get mad and he asks the raven if he will " Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.” What the man is asking here is if he will see his love Lenore in heaven, and the raven replies “ Nevermore”. This is when the man goes pretty ballistic, he wants the bird to leave now and not leave a trace that it was there so he doesn’t remember what happened, but the raven stays put and doesn’t move a …show more content…

Almost the entire book Cal talks about how much he loves her, and he hopes that her and her boyfriend, Tom Bradford, break up so he can sweep her off her feet and make her his girlfriend. After Cal first finds out what Gretchen has been going through he hopes he can save her from her terrible father, during the time he is helping Gretchen, he almost dies, losses his father, the love of his life, and a lot of other things but in the end its all worth it to save another person's life. Cal’s plan to help Gretchen takes about half the book to finish but he finished it, to get the plan to work he had to do many things to get her dad to go to jail, he has to steal liquor from Sid, he’s got to steal Otto’s car and also get the the liquor in there, and also crash the car into the shop. The whole time he is working on this plan he hopes it all works out and that he won’t get caught so he can get Otto in jail so Gretchen will be saved from her

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  • Compare And Contrast The Pit And The Pendulum And Fall Of The House Of Usher

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    The Pit and the Pendulum and the Fall of the House of Usher are both dark and both have a gothic writing style to them. Edgar Allen Poe is known for his gothic writing style. In the Fall of the House of Usher he uses dark, gloomy, and suspenseful verbs. In the Pen and the Pendulum he uses suspense and a dark atmosphere.

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  • Insane In Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven

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    Edgar Allen Poe’s poem, "The Raven" starts off in a dark setting with an apartment on a "bleak December" night. The reader meets an agonized man sifting through his books while mourning over the premature death of a woman named Lenore. When the character is introduced to the raven he asks about Lenore and the chance in afterlife in which the bird replies “nevermore” which confirms his worst fears. This piece by Edgar Allen Poe is unparalleled; his poem’s theme is not predictable, it leads to a bitter negative ending and is surrounded by pain. To set this tone, Poe uses devices such as the repetition of "nevermore" to emphasize the meaning of the word to the overall theme; he also sets a dramatic tone that shows the character going from weary

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    A time in the poem it is clear the raven symbolizes the speaker's guilt for the loss of his maiden Lenore is in stanza sixteen and seventeen. The speaker asks the raven if Lenore is in heaven and the raven answers him saying no, she is in hell. The speaker feels it is his fault she is in hell because they had sex despite them not being married. The speaker begins screaming declaring the raven is lying to him and that his maiden is indeed in heaven. This is simply just the speakers attempt to deal

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  • How Does Poe Use Loss In The Raven

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    Whenever the narrator questions the Raven on when his deceased love will return, or when he will stop grieving, the Raven responds with the repeated word “Nevermore” (Poe 102). The bird’s incessant reminders signify that since Lenore’s death is eternal, the narrator’s consequent anguish from it must be as well, which is why the narrator is incapable to ever recover from the Raven’s words on his loss. For, this leaves an everlasting impression on the narrator, prompting him to demand the bird, “‘Take thy beak out of my heart’” (Poe 101). In this metaphor, the author alludes that the Raven’s ‘beak’ is the words it is saying to the narrator, and the ‘heart’ is not representative of the narrator’s physical heart, because the bird is not physically attacking the speaker, but is making him aware of his eternal loss and irreversibly breaking him down emotionally. Therefore, Poe’s use of repetition and metaphor aid him in expressing the loss induced anguish of the

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  • Why Does The Raven Say 'Never More'

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    Within “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “Pit and Pendulum”, Poe expresses his writing techniques. By reading just two of his works it is easy to tell that there is a pattern. All of his works include something dark and are very suspenseful. Edgar Allan Poe has a very unique style of writing, within his writing he discusses many different ideas including imagery , repetition, and suspenseful build. Poe sets the mood of his story with great detail.

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