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This article is about the short story by Edgar Allan Poe.

The Pit and the Pendulum

Author	Edgar Allan Poe
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	Horror short story
Released in	The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present"
Media Type	Print (periodical)
Released	1842

"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition; it is considered one of the classic stories of the horror genre.

At the beginning of the story an unnamed narrator is brought to trial before sinister judges. He provides no explanation of why he is there or what he has been arrested for. Before him are seven tall white candles on a table and as they melt, his hopes of survival also diminish. He is condemned to death and finds himself in a pitch black compartment. At first the prisoner thinks that he is locked in a tomb, but he discovers that he is in a cell. He decides to explore the cell by placing a piece of his shirt against a wall so he can count the paces around the room; however he faints before being able to measure the whole perimeter.

When the prisoner awakens he discovers food and water near by. He gets back up and tries to measure the prison again, finding that the perimeter measures one hundred steps on each side. While crossing the room he slips on the hem of his shirt. He discovers that if he had not tripped he would have walked into a seemingly bottomless pit in the centre of the cell.

After losing consciousness again the narrator discovers that the prison is slightly illuminated and that he is bound to a wooden board by ropes. He looks up in horror to see a painted picture of Father Time on the ceiling; hanging from the figure is a gigantic scythe pendulum swinging back and forth slowly. The pendulum is slowly moving down and will eventually kill him. However the condemned man is able to attract rats to his bonds with meat left for him to eat and they start chewing through the ropes. As the pendulum reaches a point inches above his heart, the prisoner breaks free of the ropes and watches as the pendulum is drawn back to the ceiling.

The walls of the cell then become hot and slowly move inward, leaving the narrator no choice but to leap into the pit. As he falls forward an arm reaches out to save him and the walls fall back. The French Army has taken Toledo and the Inquisition is in the hands of its enemies.

In fact, Poe takes dramatic license with Spanish history in this story. The rescuers are lead by Napoleon's General Lasalle (who was not, however, in command of the French occupation of Toledo [1]) and this places the action during the Peninsular War, centuries after the height of the Spanish Inquisition and at a time when it had lost much of its power. The elaborate and costly tortures of this story have no historic parallels in the activity of the Spanish Inquisition in any century, let alone the Nineteenth. The Inquisition was however abolished during the period of French intervention (1808-12).

• Several film adaptations of the story have been produced, most notably the 1961 film directed by Roger Corman starring Vincent Price and Barbara Steele. More than the other installments in the Corman/Price "Poe Cycle", the screenplay bears minimal resemblance to the Poe story: the torture apparatus of the title makes its appearance only in the final 10 minutes of the film.

• Czech surrealist animator Jan Svankmajer made a movie short called The Pit, the Pendulum and the Hope, loosely based on this story.

• In 1991 a film version of the story, directed by Stuart Gordon and starring Lance Henriksen, was released. The plot was altered to a love story set in Spain in 1492.

• In 2006 a stop-motion animated version of the story "The Pit and the Pendulum" was completed under the 'Ray Harryhausen Presents' banner. The film was executive produced by Ray Harryhausen and Fred Fuchs, directed by Marc Lougee, and produced by Susan Ma and Marc Lougee.

• 2006 stop motion short film The Pit and the Pendulum
• The Pit and the Pendulum, online at Ye Olde Library
• Full text on PoeStories.com with hyperlinked vocabulary words.
• Free audio recording of "The Pit and the Pendulum" from Librivox
• Pit and the Pendulum - Fully searchable text of Edgar Allan Poe's story.

Edgar Allan Poe
Poems
Poetry (1824) • O, Tempora! O, Mores! (1825) • Song (1827) • Imitation (1827) • Spirits of the Dead (1827) • A Dream (1827) • Stanzas (1827) • Tamerlane (1827) • The Lake (1827) • Evening Star (1827) • A Dream (1827) • To Margaret (1827) • The Happiest Day (1827) • To The River —— (1828) (1828) • Romance (1829) • Fairy-Land (1829) • To Science (1829) • To Isaac Lea (1829) • Al Aaraaf (1829) • An Acrostic (1829) • Elizabeth (1829) • To Helen (1831) • A Paean (1831) • The Sleeper (1831) • The City in the Sea (1831) • The Valley of Unrest (1831) • Israfel (1831) • The Coliseum (1833) • Enigma (1833) • Fanny (1833) • Serenade (1833) • Song of Triumph from Epimanes (1833) • Latin Hymn (1833) • To One in Paradise (1833) • Hymn (1835) • Politician (1835) • May Queen Ode (1836) • Spiritual Song (1836) • Bridal Ballad (1837) • To Zante (1837) • The Haunted Palace (1839) • Silence, a Sonnet (1839) • Lines on Joe Locke (1843) • The Conqueror Worm (1843) • Lenore (1843) • Eulalie (1843) • A Campaign Song (1844) • Dream-Land (1844) • Impromptu. To Kate Carol (1845) • To Frances (1845) • The Divine Right of Kings (1845) • Epigram for Wall Street (1845) • The Raven (1845) • A Valentine (1846) • Beloved Physician (1847) • An Enigma (1847) • Deep in Earth (1847) • Ulalume (1847) • Lines on Ale (1848) • To Marie Louise (1848) • Evangeline (1848) • Eldorado (1849) • For Annie (1849) • The Bells (1849) • Annabel Lee (1849) • A Dream Within A Dream (1850) • Alone (1875)
Tales
Metzengerstein (1832) • The Duc De L'Omelette (1832) • A Tale of Jerusalem (1832) • Loss of Breath (1832) • Bon-Bon (1832) • MS. Found in a Bottle (1833) • The Assignation (1834) • Berenice (1835) • Morella (1835) • Lionizing (1835) • The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfaall (1835) • King Pest (1835) • Shadow - A Parable (1835) • Four Beasts in One - The Homo-Cameleopard (1836) • Mystification (1837) • Silence - A Fable (1837) • Ligeia (1838) • How to Write a Blackwood Article (1838) • A Predicament (1838) • The Devil in the Belfry (1839) • The Man That Was Used Up (1839) • The Fall of the House of Usher (1839) • William Wilson (1839) • The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion (1839) • Why the Little Frenchman Wears His Hand in a Sling (1840) • The Business Man (1840) • The Man of the Crowd (1840) • The Murders in the Rue Morgue (1841) • A Descent into the Maelstrom (1841) • The Island of the Fay (1841) • The Colloquy of Monos and Una (1841) • Never Bet the Devil Your Head (1841) • Eleonora (1841) • Three Sundays in a Week (1841) • The Oval Portrait (1842) • The Masque of the Red Death (1842) • The Landscape Garden (1842) • The Mystery of Marie Roget (1842) • The Pit and the Pendulum (1842) • The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) • The Gold-Bug (1843) • The Black Cat (1843) • Diddling (1843) • The Spectacles (1844) • A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (1844) • The Premature Burial (1844) • Mesmeric Revelation (1844) • The Oblong Box (1844) • The Angel of the Odd (1844) • Thou Art the Man (1844) • The Literary Life of Thingum Bob, Esq. (1844) • The Purloined Letter (1844) • The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade (1845) • Some Words with a Mummy (1845) • The Power of Words (1845) • The Imp of the Perverse (1845) • The System of Doctor Tarr and Professor Fether (1845) • The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar (1845) • The Sphinx (1846) • The Cask of Amontillado (1846) • The Domain of Arnheim (1847) • Mellonta Tauta (1849) • Hop-Frog (1849) • Von Kempelen and His Discovery (1849) • X-ing a Paragrab (1849) • Landor's Cottage (1849)
Other Works
Essays: Maelzel's Chess Player (1836) • The Daguerreotype (1840) • The Philosophy of Furniture (1840) • A Few Words on Secret Writing (1841) • The Rationale of Verse (1843) • Morning on the Wissahiccon (1844) • Old English Poetry (1845) • The Philosophy of Composition (1846) • The Poetic Principle (1846) • Eureka (1848) Hoaxes: • The Balloon-Hoax (1844) Novels: The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1837) • The Journal of Julius Rodman (1840) Plays: Scenes From 'Politian' (1835) Other: The Conchologist's First Book (1839) • The Light-House (1849)
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