Thursday, February 14, 2013
Edger Allan Poe "The Pit and the Pendulum" Blog #2
As I was looking over the reading that we could pick from, the short story I have decided to analyze is The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allan Poe. It is about a unnamed narrator who gets sent away to face his death in a dark chamber. As he is trying to learn more about the chamber that he is in, he soon discovers more and more about what is going on around him. The fear is brought on by the mind, the narrator is not just imagining all of the horrible things that is going on,they are real life experiences. The mind can become quickly deceived when placed in a unfamiliar place, the human mind can be your worst enemy. While I have not yet fully decided on what I plan to do such as New Critical or readers response, but I am very intrigued in this story.
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Caitlin,
ReplyDeleteYou write, “It is about a unnamed narrator who gets sent away to face his death in a dark chamber.” I think you mean “unnamed character”. That said, you should identify the narrator and the narrator’s relationship to the speaker – is the narrator a participant narrator? A third person narrator? Etc. The relationship between narrator and character will have a lot to do with how the author “signals” the reader to interpret (should you do New Criticism).
“The fear is brought on by the mind, the narrator is not just imagining all of the horrible things that is going on,they are real life experiences.” What fear? Whose mind? There’s not enough here for me to go on, but I’m guessing there might be some irony at work here? (i.e., he thinks something’s imaginary but it’s very real, etc.)
I wish I could add more, but you haven’t really done any analysis here, just a brief summary. In your next blog post , do consider really developing your ideas, and I will be able to provide better, more specific feedback. I’ll look forward to seeing how you develop this.
A