In the 1840 preface to Tales
of the Grotesque and Arabesque, a collection of his short
stories, Poe describes his authorial goal of “unity of design.”
In “The Philosophy of Composition,” which was written three years
after “The Pit and the Pendulum,” he proclaims that the ideal short
story must be short enough to be read at a single sitting. Moreover,
he argues that all elements of a work of fiction should be crafted
toward a single, intense effect. These critical theories merge in
“The Pit and the Pendulum”; this short tale ruminates, at every
moment, on the horror of its punishments without actually requiring
that they be performed. Stripped of extraneous detail, the story
focuses on what horror truly is: not the physical pain of death, but
the terrible realization that a victim has no choice but to die. Whether
the narrator chooses to jump into the pit or get sliced in half
by the pendulum, he faces an identical outcome—death.
The horror of this lack of choice is the effect for which
everything in the story strives. The story, however, holds out hope
by demonstrating that true resolve when what someone chooses to
do seems most impossible. When threatened by the pendulum, the narrator does
not succumb to the swooning of his senses. He recruits his rational
capacities and uses the hungry rats for his own benefit. In this
way, the narrator resembles a character like C. Auguste Dupin in
“The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” who can separate himself from the
emotional overload of a situation and put himself in a position
to draw rational conclusions.
