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“The Pit and the Pendulum” Edgar Allan Poe

+ Selection Vocab.
What Breeds confound

Terror? eloquent

What causes the heart to race

and the palms to sweat? Perhaps indeterminate
it’s a deserted alley, a snarling
insuperable
dog, or a shadowy stranger. In
these selections, the physical lethargy
and psychological effects of fear
are expressed. lucid

pertinacity

pervade

supposition

voracity

+Reading Text Analysis: Poe’s Style

Strategy:
jA writer’s style is the particular way he or narrator expresses emotional intensity,
Paraphraseing
she uses language to communicate ideas. creating a tone horror and terror
Poe’s works can be Some writers are famous for their
challenging because * repeated italicized words
distinctive, innovative styles. This is true
they often feature
of Edgar Allan Poe, whose dark, * unusual choice of words, phrases, and
unfamiliar words and
complex sentences. suspenseful works helped create the expressions
Paraphrasing these genre of modern horror literature. The
(putting them in your * long sentences or sentences with
following characteristics frequently mark
own words) is a interruptions
his style:
helpful strategy.
* strange or grotesque sensory images
*a first person point of view in which the
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Edgar Allan Poe

1809 - 1849

Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things that

escape those who dream only at night…
Living a Nightmare at West Point, Poe, 21, sought work 1847, his wife, Virginia, fell victim to
as a writer. Allan did not approve of tuberculosis. Two years later, at the
Edgar Allan Poe was born in Boston,
Poe’s literary ambitions, and in time, age of 40, Poe himself grew ill and
the son of traveling actors. Following
severed all ties with his foster son. died. Although Poe’s life was brief,
Poe’s birth, his father deserted the
his contribution to literature was
family, and his mother moved to A Valuable Legacy
great. He is widely credited with the
Virginia. She died in 1811, shortly
The 1845 publication of his eerie invention of modern horror and
after the move. An orphan, Poe was
poem “The Raven” made Poe detective literature.
raised by his mother’s friend Frances
famous. His success, however, was
Allan and her husband, John, a
soon marred by personal tragedy. In
merchant. In 1831, after brief studies

Background to the Story opposed the teachings of the church.

The priests, or inquisitors, frequently
“The Pit and the Pendulum” is set in
misused their power. Some suspects
the Spanish city of Toledo during the
were tortured, and those found guilty
grim age of the Spanish Inquisition.
were often executed at elaborate
Since the Middle Ages, the Roman
public ceremonies called autos-da-
Catholic Church had authorized
fe.
priests to try heretics – people who

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Vocabulary Assignment – Define the words and then use them in an original
sentence.

Word and Definition Original Sentence

Confound

Eloquent

Indeterminate

Insuperable

Lethargy

Lucid

Pertinacity

Pervade

Supposition

Veracity

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Prom what point of view is this Where is the strange sensory image?
passage written? How is this point of To what senses does it appeal?
view identified?

Write two sentences imitating Poe’s

+
Where is the repetition in this style.
Poe’s Style:
passage? What does it emphasize?

After this I call to mind

1) flatness and dampness; and
all that is madness – the
madness of a memory
How are italics used to emphasize a which busies itself among
main idea in the passage? forbidden things.

Edgar Allan Poe

2)

Where is the unusual phrase, and

what might it mean?

Where is the long, interrupted

sentence, and what is its
significance?

(continued)

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Readi
Reading
Strategy:
Paraphrase

Despite his benevolent air, my interrogator Despite his kind manner, my questioner
proved to be, like the shearling wolf, a turned out to be a deceitful monster.
duplicitous fiend.
And then there stole into my fancy, like a
rich musical note, the thought of what sweet
rest there must be in the grave. The thought
came gently and stealthily, and it seemed
long before it attained full appreciation; but
just as my spirit came at length properly to
feel and entertain it, the figures of the judges
vanished, as if magically, from before me;
the tall candles sank into nothingness; their
flames went out utterly; the blackness of
darkness supervened; all sensations
appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing
descent as of the soul into Hades. Then
silence, stillness, and night were the
universe.

Shaking in every limb, I groped my wall;

resolving there to perish rather than risk the
terrors of the wells, of which my imagination
now pictured many in various positions
about the dungeon. In other conditions of
mind I might have had courage to end my
misery at once by a plunge into one of these
abysses; but now I was the veriest of
cowards. Neither could I forget what I had
read of these pits – that the sudden extinction
of life formed no part of their most horrible
plan.

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