In "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allen Poe, the switch between Rationalism and Romanticism becomes evident. Rationalism consists of God creating everyone and everything, reasoning, and scientific evidence and backup. On the other hand, Romanticism deals with just the opposite. It is more about imagination, feelings and emotions, nature and dealing with the self and "self experiences." Saying that these two literature periods came right after another is incredible because they differ each other drastically. Edgar Allen Poe is a significant figure during the Romanticism period. He is considered a Dark Romanticist. Dark Romanticists tend to write about emotions and psychological fears. Poe is known for writing disturbing and dark stories about characters who are at inner turmoil and suffering. Edgar Allen Poe exhibits the characteristics of the Romanticism period through his short story, "The Pit and the Pendulum," by portraying acts of imagination, emotions, examining oneself and innocence.
Imagination is a key part of the Romanticism period. Instead of placing their faith in God, people placed their faith in their inner experiences and imagination. Throughout the story, Poe includes passages that exhibit imagination. One passage is , "He who has never swooned, is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that glow; is not he who beholds floating in midair the sad visions that the many may not view; is not he who ponders over the perfume of some novel flower-is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention" (Poe 264). The actions in this quote have to be imagined because all that coal is made of is coal and it cannot turn into 'strange palaces' or 'familiar faces.' The next part talks about floating in midair, which is found to be impossible because of the force of gravity.
Along with imagination, are emotions and fears. The narrator was put into a cell for a crime that called for a death sentence. "My worst thoughts, then, were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me. The atmosphere was intolerably close" (Poe 265). The cell he was placed in is dark, claustrophobic, damp, and rat infested. Being in that cell freaked him out and caused him to be fearful. Having these fears within the writing, is because Edgar Allen Poe is a Dark Romanticist. Next comes, the confusion and inner turmoil. "In this story we find the most explicit statement in Poe's fiction of his sense of the blurry line between dream and reality" (May). For most of the short story, the narrator is drifting in and out of consciousness and sensibility. He does this so often that he finds himself wondering if he is still in a dream or if it is real life. Because he does not know what sate he is in, it affects what he does. "But where and in what state was I?" (Poe 265). For example, he tried to get a rough estimate of the width of his cell, but each time he would lose consciousness, he would end up retracing his steps. This led him to think that his cell was twice the size.
After all of this, just through reading "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allen Poe, several qualities of the Romanticism period become obvious. Poe brought imagination, fear, emotions, etc, out in his writing in a disturbing, creepy way. This is what makes his writing, specifically this story at the moment, sought after during this period. "The ending is not an ending at all, but rather the beginning of waking life, the movement from the gossamer dream or nightmare that constitutes the story itself" (May).
May, Charlie E. "Dreams and Reality in the Story." Infobase Learning - Login. Bloom's Literary
Reference, 1991. Web. 04 Nov. 2012.
Poe, Edgar Allen. "The Pit and the Pendulum." Glencoe Literature. Wilhelm, J., et al. New York: Glencoe McGraw-Hill. 2009. 263-73. Print
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