Vocabulary
This word means clear or easily understood.
What is a lucid?
Where is the narrator imprisoned?
In a dark dungeon during the Spanish Inquisition
What does the narrator find when he measures the cell by walking around it?
He finds out that it is 50 yards in circumference
The pit most strongly symbolizes…
Hell or death.
Name the author of The Pit and the Pendulum.
Who is Edgar Allan Poe?
To turn away one’s eyes or thoughts.
What is averted?
What nearly causes the narrator’s death at the very beginning?
Falling into the pit.
What food is given to the narrator while he is chained?
Meat heavily seasoned
The pendulum represents…
The passing of time and inevitability of death
This literary technique creates suspense by slowly describing the swinging blade.
What is pacing or imagery?
Marked by noisy disorder and confusion.
What is tumultuous?
What weapon of torture swings back and forth over the narrator?
The pendulum
Why does the narrator faint after discovering the pit?
By the drugged water he is given.
The rats symbolize…
Unexpected sources of salvation / survival
Which sense does Poe emphasize most to show the narrator’s fear?
The sense of sound
A state of sluggishness or lack of energy.
What is lethargy?
How does the narrator escape the pendulum?
He uses meat scraps to get rats to chew through his bonds
What do the walls of the cell begin to do toward the end?
They heat up and close in, pushing him toward the pit.
The closing hot walls symbolize…
The pressure and inevitability of fate
True or False: The narrator dies at the end.
False
Lying flat and face down, often in submission or defeat.
What is prostrate?
Who rescues the narrator at the very end?
General Lasalle and the French army
What sound signals the arrival of the rescuers?
Trumpets/fanfare
The story as a whole can be seen as a symbol of…
The human struggle against fear and death
What theme is most central to the story?
The triumph of hope/survival over despair and death