History Literature / ThePitAndThePendulum

* NeverTrustATitle: Despite both major traps sharing double billing, it's the pendulum that everyone remembers. If the pit wasn't in the title, some people probably wouldn't know it was a plot point at all.

''The Pit and the Pendulum'' is a classic short story by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe, first published in 1842 and subsequently revised in 1845 for the ''Broadway Journal''.

* AnythingButThat: As the walls close in and get hotter, the narrator claims "any death but that of the pit!"

* FateWorseThanDeath: The narrator considers falling into the pit a way worse punishment than burning to death on the red-hot iron walls.

* NeverTrustATitle: The story is less about the pendulum and more about the first half of the title; it's a fall into the pit that the narrator fears most. Despite this, the pendulum is the most famous part, and if it wasn't in the title, most people wouldn't know that the pit was in the story at all.

** The epigraph, the quote on top of this page, is said to have been intended for a market to be erected on the site of the Jacobin Club House in Paris, a market which never did get built[[note]]The Jacobins were a revolutionary political club who gained infamy in the wake of UsefulNotes/TheFrenchRevolution, and were responsible for the infamous ReignOfTerror during that period[[/note]]. According to Charles Baudelaire, a French poet who was very much inspired by Poe, the building on the site of the Old Jacobin Club had no gates and, therefore, no inscription.

** The epigraph, the quote on top of this page, is said to have been intended for a market to be erected on the site of the Jacobin Club House in Paris, a market which never did get built[[note]]The Jacobins were a revolutionary political club who gained infamy in the wake of the French Revolution, and were responsible for the infamous ReignOfTerror during that period[[/note]]. According to Charles Baudelaire, a French poet who was very much inspired by Poe, the building on the site of the Old Jacobin Club had no gates and, therefore, no inscription.

** It should probably go without saying that the Spanish Inquisition, despite their reputation as one of the more ruthless Inquisitions of the Catholic Church, never employed the kind of devious {{Death Trap}}s depicted here to execute those they found guilty of heresy.

* NeverTrustATitle: The story is less about the pendulum and more about the first half of the title; it's a fall into the pit that the narrator fears most. Despite this, the pendulum is the most famous part and if it wasn't in the title most people wouldn't know that the pit was in the story at all.
* NothingIsScarier: We never do find out what is in the pit. All we get is a vague description of a "decayed fungus" smell and some barely-visible gritty water.

!This short story contains examples of:

* NeverTrustATitle: The story is less about the pendulum and more about the first half of the title; it's a fall into the pit that the narrator fears most. Despite this, the pendulum is the most famous part of the story and if it wasn't in the title most people wouldn't know that the pit was in the story at all.

* MisleadingTitle: The story is less about the pendulum and more about the first half of the title; it's a fall into the pit that the narrator fears most. Despite this, the pendulum is the most famous part of the story and if it wasn't in the title most people wouldn't know that the pit was in the story at all.

* NothingIsScarier: We never do find out what is in that pit. All we get is a vague description of a "decayed fungus" smell and some barely-visible gritty water.

* NothingIsScarier: We never do find out what is in that pit. All we get is a vague description of a "fungus-like" smell and some barely-visible gritty water.

[[caption-width-right:350:''[[OverlyLongScream The agony of my soul found vent in one loud, long, and final vent of despair.]]'']]

* NothingIsScarier: We never do find out what is in that pit.

** It should probably go without saying that the Spanish Inquisition, despite their reputation as one of the more ruthless Inquisitions of the Catholic Church, never employed the kind of devious {{Death Trap}}s depicted here to execute those they found guilty of heresy -- you were more likely to be [[BurnTheWitch burned at the stake]] then trapped in the chamber of horrors our protagonist was put in.

** The rescue of the protagonist by the French puts the story in the period of the Peninsular War of 1808-14, centuries after the Inquisition's height. Though the Peninsular War spelled the end of the Inquisition in Spain, only four people were condemned to death by the Inquisition during that period. In addition, the leader of the protagonist's rescuers in the story, General Lasalle, never took part in the occupation of Toledo during that period.

The story is about a man who is brought to trial by TheSpanishInquisition. We do not learn this man's name or what he is being charged with, but it isn't long before he's found guilty of the unnamed crime and condemned to death, after which he promptly faints and awakens in what is soon revealed to be a cell. After fainting again, he discovers food and water nearby and explores the cell, learning that the perimeter of the chamber measures a hundred steps and trips on his robe while trying to cross the room, learning that he very narrowly avoided falling into a deep pit.

Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.''[[note]]"Here an unholy mob of torturers with an insatiable thirst for innocent blood, once fed their long frenzy. Now our homeland is safe, the funereal cave destroyed, and life and health appear where dreadful death once was."[[/note]]''

Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.''

* DeathTrap: This story may well be the TropeMaker - featuring, among other nasty things, a DescendingCeiling, ClosingWalls and a BottomlessPit.

* NothingIsScarier: We never find out what is in that pit.

** The rescue of the protagonist by the French puts the story in the period of the Peninsular War of 1808-14, centuries after the Inquisition's height. Though the Peninsular War spelled the end of the Inquisition in Spain, only four people were condemned to death by the Inquisition during that period. In addition, the leader of the protagonist's rescuers in the story, General Lasalle, never took part in the occupation of Toledo during that period.

After losing consciousness again, the man finds himself strapped to a wooden frame on his back facing the ceiling, where a bladed pendulum is swinging back and forth and slowly descending, designed to eventually reach its victim and kill him.