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 and French, three in Dutch, four in German and one in Hungarian, and the book continued to be published and referenced until the 19th century. The largely fabricated story relates the tale of a prisoner who passes through all the stages of the process and above all the interrogation, allowing the reader to identify with the victim. Del Corro's description presents some of the most extreme practices as being routine, such as the innocence of all the accused, the officials of the Inquisition are shown as being devious and vain and each step of the process is shown as a