I think that a big part of the suspense in "The Pit and Pendulum" comes from two sources.
The first is the unknown. The reader has no idea why the protagonist has been arrested and sentenced. The opening paragraphs have him in and out of conscious thought all while hallucinating. We don't know who he is or what he has done to deserve punishment. Once he is in his cell, the unknown continues. It's too dark to see anything, so the protagonist (and reader) has no idea where he is. After he successfully evades the pit, the protagonist must face the pendulum. There is always a sense of "what could possibly come next?" That's suspenseful reading.
The second source for suspense is the protagonist's solitude. Being alone in an unknown place is scary. Having to suffer alone is scary. If the narrator had a cellmate, then readers might hope the two could at least help each other cope. That isn't an option for the protagonist, though. He must go about his torture alone. He's only dependent on himself, which I believe makes the story more suspenseful.
No comments:
Post a Comment