Dark Romanticism of The Pit and the Pendulum

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most important writers in the genre of Dark Romanticism. His style and word usage, along with the subject matter of his short stories all follow the style of Dark Romanticism. The short story of “The Pit and the Pendulum” is an excellent example of these characteristics used by Poe. Not only is the story about the torture brought upon a man, but also the way in which the story is written follows the basis of Dark Romantic Literature.

The beginning of the story in the courtroom starts off right away with an example of Dark Romanticism. The narrator describes the judge as wearing a very dark robe with extremely white lips (Poe). These two things have a very significant meaning in the figurative sense of the story. Both of these things symbolize death because black is always a symbol of death and the white lips are like a dead body that has become cold. This is almost hinting at the fact that the narrator is already dead, but it seems more that he has an anxiety of death already.

Another symbol of death that is used in the story is one of the torture devices. The pendulum that is swinging towards the prisoner is actually a scythe, which is the tool quite often associated with the character of “Death” (Poe). This is strongly supporting of Dark Romanticism in a sense that it is all about the death of a human being. The device almost symbolizes the eminent death of a person. This is something that Dark Romanticism is supportive of, because its belief is that all people are eventually going to die or self destruct.

The pit in the story seems to represent emptiness. In the story, the narrator describes the well as being extremely deep. He drops a rock in it and does not hear it hit water for a very long time (Poe). This could very well represent the emptiness of humans as a whole in the world. Being almost empty is similar to how the Dark Romantics believe that humans are. Near the end of the story, the narrator speaks of how he is being pushed towards the pit (Poe). It seems like he means that he is being pushed towards the emptiness of himself which could cause the self destruction that Dark Romantics thought that everyone eventually reaches.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” there are many examples of Dark Romanticism. Many of the symbols used in the story display the characteristics that were popular in the style of Dark Romantic literature. This is no surprise as Poe was one of the leaders in the style of Dark Romanticism. The symbols of the pendulum being eminent death of a person and the pit being the emptiness of the people in the world are both evidence of a strong influence from Dark Romanticism. Along with the use of these symbols, there is also use of writing style and word usage that was popular to the how Dark Romantics wrote their works.



Works Cited

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Pit and the Pendulum” American Literature. Comp. Wilhelm, Jeffory. Columbus 2009.