The Pit and the Pendulum is a short story about terror written by the famous American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was born on January 19, 1809 in Boston, Massachusetts. When he was a child his parents died and Poe was taken into custody by John Allan. After a couple of years Poe decided to attend the University of Virginia where he later dropped out due to financial problems and returned home to find that his sweetheart named Sara was engaged to someone else. Poe suffered so many problems emotionally and physically that people believe his stories and poems were inspired by those situations. The story of The Well and the Pendulum takes place at the time of the Spanish Inquisition (1487), when Spain was fighting among themselves because half the population was Christian and the other half was Jewish, which began what would became the Spanish Inquisition. At the time, the church had a strong hold on society and this era brought one of the most brutal punishments in history to those who opposed the church. The Spanish Inquisition presented many painful tools of punishment that befell anyone who did not follow the law or do traditional things. Even the innocent were punished. The monks were the ones who punished people in the name of God and they were also the ones who executed people, an idea that would be highly frowned upon in today's society. The Spanish Inquisition era plays an essential role in The Pit and the Pendulum, making the story that much more horrific. We say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay The Pit and the Pendulum is a first-person story of an unknown narrator who feels sick with agony, who was drugged and knocked unconscious throughout the trial in which he was judged by several judges with faces covered. He says these people are inquisitors, which gives us a clue that this is the Spanish Inquisition known for its painful punishments. The unnamed narrator was starting to lose his sight and found himself in an extremely dark cell, believing he was buried alive in a tomb. He begins to walk around the cell without seeing, but at the same time counts the steps to see how big the cell is. After several steps he always falls towards a well and goes back to his cell to sleep and wakes up and sees his room lit up, he realizes that he has been tied up and can only use his left hand. After a couple of minutes, he notices that on the ceiling there is an image of the father of time and a pendulum slowly going towards him. The nameless narrator manages to escape, then suddenly the walls push the protagonist into the pit, but suddenly he is saved by the general of the French army. The Pit and the Pendulum is a first person story that gives us extreme details within the story such as different aspects of symbolism throughout the story and themes. First-person narration gives the reader a special point of view of the story by describing every single detail throughout the story and makes the audience feel like they are in the story and experiencing the horror for themselves. The story of the Well and the Pendulum offers the reader the experience of reading a story in which the narrator is himself the protagonist. Throughout the story, the narrator was extremely specific and descriptive telling the reader about his frightening experience, which grabs the audience's attention and makes them curious as they read deeper. The story is in the first person and also shows the emotions of the anonymous narrator of the situations he experienced for example; “The darkness of eternal night enveloped me. I struggled to breathe. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and suffocate me. The atmosphere was intolerably cramped.” The narrator describes the.