The Pit and the Pendulum The Pit and the Pendulum "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842 in the literary annual "The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843". The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe skews historical facts. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are
Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition since the Middle Ages. One of the reasons why Spain wanted to introduce the Spanish Inquisition instead was precisely to counter or reduce that foreign influence in Spanish territory, and as such the Pope and powers rival to Spain invited, or even brived, disobedience to try and preserve their power in Naples Italian sources can hardly be considered as "part of the legend" since their deformation of the facts is not systematic and sustained through time but a reasonable reaction to having a foreign institution imposed upon them, but have been used out of context once said legend was already