Wednesday 7 January 2009

How does the narrator describe the dungeon in "The Pit and the Pendulum"?

There are
two descriptions of the dungeon given - one before the narrator has light by which to see it,
and one after he he has been tied up and has light through the opening in the ceiling.  In his
examination of the dungeon in the dark, the narrator decides that the dungeon is made of stone,
smooth and slimy, and that it is about 100 yards around.  He also believes that the dungeon is
circular and has a circular pit in the middle of it. 

Here are the details
from after light is provided:

"The whole
circuit ...did not exceed twenty-five yards....The general shape of the prison was square. What
I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates, whose
sutures or joints occasioned the depression. The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was
rudely
href="https://www.owleyes.org/text/pit-pendulum/read/the-pit-and-the-pendulum">daubed
in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which the
href="https://www.owleyes.org/text/pit-pendulum/read/the-pit-and-the-pendulum">charnel
superstition of the monks has given rise. The figures of fiends in aspects of menace,
...overspread and disfigured the walls. ... the floor, too, which was of stone. In the centre
yawned the circular pit ....Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling.... constructed much as the
side walls. In one of its panels .... was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly
represented, save that, in lieu of a
href="https://www.owleyes.org/text/pit-pendulum/read/the-pit-and-the-pendulum">scythe,
he held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum such as
we see on antique clocks."

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