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 to be present, (most inquisitors didn´t believe in witchcraft etc...); and finally systematically neglecting to mention similar actions by other institutions or nations. This construction, the black legend, turns a relatively regular or unremarcable- for the context- event into an exceptionality in scope and nature, attached to one nation alone. As such, the black legend of the inquisition is created to demonize the other- Spain and/or Catholicism- and maintained as self-justification for those whose´s own deeds are overshadowed or ignored. Kamen establishes two sources for the Black Legend of the Spanish Inquisition. Firstly, an Italian Catholic origin, and secondly, a