For example, at the beginning of the story the narrator wakes up in a dark place that is unfamiliar to him. He wakes up and says, “I forced myself to imagine where and what I might have been…It was not that I feared looking at horrible things, but that I was horrified lest there was nothing to see” (Poe 107). Poe included this because waking up in a dark, unknown place is a natural human fear. Something even worse is not knowing what comes next or what your destiny will be. The narrator can see in the last seconds of his life that he has a choice between life and death. The pendulum above him continues to move closer, but each time at intervals of only an inch. Throughout the time he spends tied up, he experiences many different emotions about the death that awaits him. The narrator's conflicting emotions are connected to the swinging movements of the pendulum. At one point, he is so psychologically confused that he considers giving up. However, he tries to ignore his nervousness at that moment and think hard about what he can do to save himself. In the end he comes up with the plan to save himself from the final swing of the pendulum that would have killed him and is saved. In "The Pit and the Pendulum", Poe has an obsession with death and this is shown in many ways. He shows this through diction and imagery of