Monday, October 29, 2012

The narrator of "The Pit and the Pendulum" is often uncertain about how much time has elapsed and about the physical details of the prison. What...

At the beginning of the story, this unfortunately does not indicate much about the state of the narrator's mind because he is stuck in absolute darkness in his cell, and thus it is impossible for him to see anything or know anything for sure about the physical details of his prison. However, despite how difficult it was, he attempted to measure out his prison, trying to determine the size and shape of the cell in which he was being held. Unfortunately, he passes out in the middle of his measuring, and when he wakes up, his "confusion of mind" has him measuring the entire cell again and thinking it was only the other half rather than a redoubling of his previous measurements. Of course, he is also drugged by his food at a couple of points, so this does not help his state of mind either.


As for the passage of time, without any windows to the outside world to allow him to see the sun, even if he was in the best state of mind, he would have had to count the seconds to know exactly how much time had passed. In absolute darkness, one can only guess at how much time has passed, and that gets harder as the time gets longer, especially when bouts of unconsciousness are thrown in to the mix.


The narrator's uncertainty can suggest that he is a bit confused, but that is most likely from the absolute darkness that he finds himself trapped in.

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