Poe’s Dissection of the Mind in The Pit and the Pendulum
Poe’s Dissection of the Mind in The Pit and the Pendulum

Summary/Abstract: The torture chamber in Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” is a metaphor for the horror of the narrator’s desire for life. In the paper, I adopt the method of intertexuality to investigate the sources of torture and horror in the story, that is, the link between Poe’s work and the literary materials that he read, or might have read. Those materials are significant in this context, since Poe may have derived inspiration from them. They also serve as a Gothic space of horror that marks not only the horror of the inquisitors’ controlling desire, but also the horror due to the narrator’s desire to live. In addition, I will look into Poe’s revelation of the demonic desire in the surreal realm. The demonic figure (or shadow of death) in the narrator’s dreams or state of unconsciousness brings consolation and relief to the narrator. It is Hillman’s guardian spirit. However, the demonic figure disperses when the protagonist strives to survive. Poe introduces the idea of reintegration of the psyche in a spiritual realm, but he disperses it later with expressions of mortals’ fear of death at the moment of “the proximity of death.” His “The Pit and the Pendulum” thus replicates the psyche’s state, swinging between the preservation of life and yielding to death.

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