The Pit In The Pendulum Analysis

Point of View in ¨The Pit in the Pendulum¨
Edgar Allen Poe's first person narrator in ¨The Pit in the Pendulum¨ is a strong survivor but being in captivity is driving him insane. In first person the readers become the strong survivor, that is the unreliable prisoner of Poe's famous short story and they get a deeper, and more visceral experience because of it. In first person point of view the reader sees the story through the eyes of the narrator, their view and interpretation of the events. The reader gets a story full of memories and sensory experiences that only first person can contain.
It's important to note that we are hearing the story in retrospect. The man, having survived his awful ordel is now writing it down. If it was being told while still in the situation the story might not sound so good. We would be reading much more screaming and cries for help. In this point of view we experience all of the awful events as if we are the prisoner. Because we are seeing, hearing, and feeling everything through the eyes of a prisoner the point of view could become unreliable. Poe chose first person point of view because the first person narrator in ¨The Pit in the Pendulum¨ heightens the horror of the story. It really adds to the story's validity. The unknown narrator telling his story of imprisonment, torture, and rescue in first person point of view adds to the story by allowing the reader to go through the trial and imagine life in prison through his eyes. The reader also gets to experience what it feels like to be a survivor of a horrific event rather than just listen to someone else's experience of being a survivor. If Edgar Allen Poe wrote the short story in any other point of view we would've gotten the same experience of being a survivor. Poe wrote ¨The Pit in the Pendulum¨ in first person point of view to further engage the reader. In this point of view the reader gets to experience what it's like to be a survivor along with the narrator. The narrator is sentenced to death in a dungeon and faces horrible, painful, and super-torturous death. Because he is a prisoner and slightly loses his mind throughout his sentence he's point of view can be unreliable. Poe's short story is told in first person so the reader could really understand the pain and torturous events that the narrator went through. If the readers were not hearing the tale right from the source, it'd probably be a total bore. Nobody wants to hear how scared the person looked or what they sounded like. The readers was a more deeper, more visceral experience, one filled with memories and sensory experiences that only a first-hand account could contain. The reader sees the story through the eyes of the narrator, their view and interpretation of the events and nothing stands between the character’s consciousness and the reader. The first person, unnamed, narrator in Poe's ¨The Pit in the Pendulum heightens the horror of the story by adding to the story's validity and makes the reader really feel like they are really in the narrators shoes. ¨Very suddenly there came back to my …show more content…
Being in the head of the prisoner makes the story interesting because we get the good sensory details and first hand experience of seeing the pendulum and feeling the pain and torture he feels. Without feeling, hearing, and seeing the things the unknown narrator is we lose what the whole short story is about.
Edgar Allen Poe choosing to tell ¨The Pit in the Pendulum¨ in first person made the readers become a strong survivor, that is the prisoner of Poe's famous short story. The reader gets a deeper, and more visceral experience because of this. From any other pov we would of gotten the facts, but we would lose the emotions and thinking which the narrator shares with us. Even an omniscient narrator would not have given us the same effect as a narrator who is telling his own story. The events in the story are horrific and they are made even more so as we experience them through the eyes, ears, and mind of the