Rodriguez 1
Aida Rodriguez
Mr. Jonathan Martinez
English 1302
29 October 2012
Life, Death, and Time
At first when reading Edgar Allan Poe's The Pit and the Pendulum we realize how the lack of time, we sometimes have, is not such a burden in comparison to the narrators. The narrator is faced with the concept of bravely facing his darkest hour where he discovers how it feels to life with fear and uncertainty about his future and watch while time takes him as a prisoner. The interpretation that can be contended is how Poe uses symbolism to grasp attention to the main conflicts in the story itself. The symbolism we can find is the definitions and roles the story items play when adjusting it to life and its main components. The pit symbolizes death which can also be described to some as hell. The pendulum exemplifies time and its essence when challenging our life or prominent death. Last but not least, the rats, display the possibility of life or heaven. This interpretation simply suggests how even though life and death are opposite concepts; they are both affected tremendously by time.
The narrator begins by describing exactly where he is at by trying to discover exactly where he is and what his future holds. Edgar Allan Poe describes, "I was sick - sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. Not only was he facing the idea of death itself, he was falling into it
(745). During the story, the narrator starts recollecting vague rumors that he starts imagining might be his soon fate. He starts considering death is exactly where he is at when he condemns,
"Was I left to perish of starvation in this subterrene world of darkness; or what fate, perhaps even

Rodriguez 2 more fearful, awaited me? That the result would be death ... (748). Evidently the simple notion that the pit in which he landed in represented death was obvious.
Now regarding the pendulum, the interpretation derived from it is that time is crucial and time changes everything regardless of the plans you have. Borrelli, Coleman, and Hobson acknowledged Poe's works as, "striking literary work in which a descending pendulum plays the role of an infernal machine (78). It is safe to assume such pendulum symbolizes time that the narrator does not have when dealing between life and death. Poe continues, "The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard" (752). Time was precious especially when the pendulum moved with such velocity and was angled to a specific route. Poe entails, "I saw that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the heart. It would fray the serge of my robe-it would return and repeat its operation-again-and again" (753).
The pendulum teased the narrator with the outcome of his future. It triggered the already desperation the narrator had dealt with when he was tied and in a empty darkness as he described. He warps the attention of the readers by giving details of the growing sweeps and space the pendulum keeps taking as time passes by regardless his fate in conflict. Can Poe be right that the sweep was brief and of course slow, but that, as the pendulum descended, the sweep ... had increased by nearly a yard .. .it's velocity also was much greater, until at last it had a terrifically wide sweep( some thirtyfeet or so) (Borrelli, Coleman, and Hobson 78)? Poe's desperation continued when he exclaimed, "But how fearful, in that case, the proximity of the steel (754)! The pendulum may have not had any time symbols but the constant change it portrayed made the narrator realize time was being displayed in front of his very own eyes.
Conclusively, the narrator begins to speak about the numerous rats that he encountered.
He states, "For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon which I lay, had

Rodriguez 3 been literally swarming with rats" (754). When can assume that the image of a rat typically gives us the perception of filth or doom if we are lying somewhere trapped. In this case, Poe seems to be using the symbol and existence of these animals differently. This all changes when Poe states,
"Avoiding it's strokes, they busied themselves with the anointed bandage" (755). Surprisingly enough, such rats had begun to help free him from the death which was so specifically waiting to happen. He mentions how at that moment when he realized he was being released; his robe had been severed already and was now coming after his skin.
After sitting there juxtaposed with every single time the pendulum inched in closer, the rats gave him the notion that he had hope. The interpretation of the rats as hope or life sounds like a facade but ultimately have the same effect as if the narrator was being physically rescued and away from all this torture. Of course throughout this moment he lays there motionless disgusted and appalled with what just occurring. Ballengee claims, "The encounter between the two seems uncanny , as if the mass of individual rats reflect some aspect of his own existence"
(35). The author's interpretation of how there is mere hope left for the narrator when this filthy rats help, lets the readers understand how the individual had a sliver of hope to escape the destruction of his body within time's reach.
Nonetheless, Edgar Allan Poe had a very straightforward way of demonstrating how sometimes we might read very well into a story and miss the symbolism items and objects play and the message it is trying to deliver. The pit, the pendulum and the rats symbolize the hell or death that the narrator was being foreshadowed into, with such a mannerism of time and its deliverance and with the most ironic concepts of hope one could imagine. Such interpretation insinuates we should read such detailed stories with the more time which ironically the narrator was missmg.

Rodriguez 4
Works Cited
Ballangee, Jennifer R.. "Torture, Modern Experience, and Beauty in Poe's "The Pit and the
Pendulum." Modern Language Studies, Vol. 38, No.1 (2008): 26-43. Print.
Borelli, Robert L., Courtney s. Coleman, and Dana D. Hobson. "Poe's Pendulum." Mathamatics
Magazine Mar. 1985: 78-83. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Complete Stories. New York; Knopf, 1992. Print.