Blog #2 Reader Response Edgar Allan Poe ( Rob Mondello)

     

      In the short story "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe the reader is taken on a journey through the grim psychological conditions of a man being condemned and awaiting punishment and inevitable death. The narration is in first person perspective by the prisoner. Several themes are explored such as despair, delirium, grief, fear and the process of death. Throughout the tale the reader is given first person perspective, and accompanies the character throughout the ordeal. The reader is given explicit details of the ongoing mental state of the narrator,  as he is stripped away from all that is familiar to him in his experience of life until now. Poe makes excellent use of gothic imagery in his descriptions of the harrowing journey. What little hope is granted to the reader is more of a concise delusion the narrator forces on himself to be able to cope with his grim reality.
     The reader is forced to share in this twisting of perception to be able to find something acceptable within the experiences which is apparent in phrases like "the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave.". We are left with no promise of relief, and instead naturally cling to the faith that the nature of the soul would not tolerate a person to forever experience unrelenting punishment. Death seems a suitable escape to the agony, and thus becomes the key to salvation for the prisoner.
       As we witness the slow unraveling of his physical existence, we share in the same gaps of awareness that the narrator undergoes.The blackouts and deliriums are transformed into an act of mercy,  which allow the prisoner and reader to momentarily escape that which we are forced to observe. Paradoxically the nothingness brought something of infinite significance. From the description " Even in the grave all was not lost. Else there is no immortality for man. Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream", we see that along with the lapse in physical sensation we are given hints of an afterlife, although the prisoner struggles with description and his attempts are at best vague. He is under the impression not everyone is capable of seeing this by going to say, " He who has never swooned is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow". This gives us insight into the prisoner as being of deep imagination, and aware of the possibility that his own souls ascension may simply be a delusional subjective interpretation of his body's descent into death.Yet within those foggy recollections the prisoner experiences an underlying fixed state that he is convinced is proof of the spirits immortality. This serves to reinforce the prisoners faith, however feeble it may be, that experience in life serves a particular function. The prisoner, even in his hazy state is able to remember and identify traces of a past life in which he states "there have been brief, very brief periods when I have conjured up remembrances which the lucid reason of a later epoch assures me could have had reference only to that condition of seeming unconsciousness."
      When it seems the prisoner has finally comes to grip with his near death, and is able to mentally prepare himself, he again falls into the dark emptiness of nothing as his senses are further stripped away. He is eventually able to only to reconstitute himself to a small degree. As his disorientation slowly subsides when we realize the prisoner has not yet met his demise, something he uncertain about himself during this process of mental disintegration. He is left with the sense sight, and must utilize it to assimilate his current predicament. He must find some way to process the situation given his limited means. His memory slowly returns of events, and he is further able to deduce he has been locked in a dungeon. Further demonstrating his excellent adaptability to his circumstances he decides to measure the location with the only resource available, a string from his robe. Weakened from prior torture that was intentionally forgotten, when he collapses he discovers a massive pit within the pitch black dungeon. Many others have prior met their demise falling into this pit. With flashes of light when given bread and water he is able to determine the shape of the cell he is and is even able to see the demonic artwork on the wall. He is taken  by the inquisitors into a torture dungeon  where he see's above him a giant pendulum with an axe on the end, that slowly descends as it lowers on him. Time nearly freezes as the pendulum swings back and forth right above him. His ropes are eventually cut by the pendulum and he is able to narrowly escape. The pendulum is raises back into the ceiling and he realizes that his every move is being watched. The reader is thrust into the paranoia the prisoner is left with. The walls literally begin to close on him, which further reinforces the symbolism of paranoia. Red hot iron devices surround all sides of him as they force him ever closer into the pit. He feels the fire from the pit as he closes in on it. At the last minute as he falls towards the abyss another hand had caught his, it was that of general Lasalle. The was the french army was invading the churchs dungeons. The reader is left with a sense that the miraculous has happened.
     The story was beautifully written, and conveys deep emotions. The imagery is well used throughout to explore the archetypes of life, death, freedom, and imprisonment. The prisoner has a keen ability to cognate his surroundings even with all the disadvantages he is against. This spirit of curiosity and rebellion, is probably what made him a targeted person during the inquisition.We see a logically applied analysis and subjective description of the multitude of subtle levels of thought we usually do not acknowledge, that are at the foundation of our higher sensory faculties. This gives an air of scientific analysis to the person, further making him an opponent to the religious institute that was in the business of halting all scientific knowledge. He entertains ideas about the afterlife that are contradictory to what the catholic church held, which is a possibility for his imprisonment. The prisoner/narrator resembles an objective spectator, someone after the truth trying to understand his current phase in life, and always uses the abilities at hand to process and question what is going on, though he is constantly being further limited in his choices by outside forces. I think this very symbolic of the we all look at the world, and the limitations in which we see it. The importance theme this story conveys to me is that man's quest for truth and understanding can pit him against overpowering forces of uncompromising domination, and even during his darkest hour when all is lost, as a result of never straying from the path towards wisdom, there is still always a chance for further understanding. I'd say the morale of this story is that miracles happen, and sometimes everything turns out better than we had hoped for. Even during the last second, what seemed like dreadful certainties can turn around and change for the better.