The Pit And The Pendulum

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The story, The Pit and the Pendulum, starts with the narrator accepting a capital punishment for an obscure wrongdoing from an institution of the Catholic government in Spain which persecuted all Protestants and heretical Catholics called the court of the Inquisition. He then tries to remember what happened in the previous couple of days before opening his eyes. Understanding that he is unbound and in a dark cell, he reasons that he must not have been at an auto-da-fe. As opposed to general society appeal to God that would have prompted an auto-da-fe execution, he has been most likely been set in one of the prisons of Toledo, a spot known for unfeeling tortures and disciplines. Frightened, the narrator blacks out, and after he awakens for the second time, he begins to investigate the prison while pondering what his destiny will be. He finds a stone wall and removes a cloth from his robe …show more content…

He then notices that large rats have been released into the dungeon. For about the next hour he focuses on keeping the rats away from his food, but when he looks back up at the ceiling he notices that the pendulum has descended and has a razor-like edge of steel on it. For an endless timeframe, the narrator watches the pendulum swinging closer and closer to his body. At first, he requests to God for a swifter plummet and, losing mental control, and battles to drive himself closer to the sharp edge. At this moment he again faints and when we awakes he noticed that the pendulum had not further descended which makes him believe it wasn’t a long faint, but reconsiders an thinks that his captors were watching him and stopped it. As his mental pressure builds, he battles between hope and despair, losing quickly to despair as he thinks about the tangled strap that holds him in place. He then gets his thoughts together for enough time to find a solution. He spreads the remaining spice and oil on the

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