Sunday, July 14, 2013

What are the 5 major literary devices in "The Pit and the Pendulum"?

There are at least five major literary devices in "The Pit
and the Pendulum."


Edgar Allan Poe is the "father" of the
horror story.  The first device is one that he uses so masterfully in his
stories:


Suspense.  What is
known by the narrator as he describes his experience is dark and frightening, and what
he does not know further heightens the intensity of the plot development.  In the
"prison" in which they place him, the dark allows him to feel somethings but other
details remain, literally, in the dark as he cannot
see.


Another device is
imagery.  In describing the "lips of the black-robed
judges," he describes them as white, "whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these
words--and thin even to grotesqueness; thin with the intensity of their expression of
firmness..."


Another literary device is the use of
metaphors.  "My vision fell upon the seven tall
candles...seemed white slender angels who would save me...the angel forms became
meaningless
spectres..."


Foreshadowing
occurs with the repeated references to motion and movement: "there came back to my soul
motion and sound--the tumultuous motion of the heart...again sound, and motion...and a
successful effort to move."  This foreshadows the motion of the pendulum.  "I saw it in
motion..."


Hyperbole
(exaggeration): "Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I would have seized
and attempted to arrest the pendulum.  I might as well have attempted to arrest an
avalanche!"


Repetition is used
describing first the figures that carried him down into the dungeons: "down--down--still
down...," and later describing the relentless movement of the pendulum toward the
narrator  "Down...Down...Down."  And again, "THE PIT...THE
PIT."


Poe uses literary devices artfully, not only in his
stories, but also in his poetry.

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