陷阱与钟摆 (1842)

《陷阱与钟摆》是一部由爱伦·坡于1842年所著的短篇小说，当时发布在The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843上。

故事简介

主角昏迷苏醒后发觉自己被困在宗教法庭内一间黑暗的囚室中，主角贴着四周移动，希望了解囚室的大小，移动时主角被小石绊倒昏迷，苏醒后发现前方是一个落穴，庆幸自己逃过一劫。后来主角在昏睡时被人绑在地上，头顶上有一把大镰刀正缓缓落下，主角在命危时利用老鼠咬开身上的绳索脱身。宗教法庭的人终于按捺不住，决定用收紧四边的墙壁而压死主角。在命在旦夕时，法军攻入宗教法庭，解放了主角。

"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe and a work of horror fiction. It was first published in 1842 in the literary annual The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, and is set very loosely during the Peninsular War between Spain and Napoleonic France (1808–1814), although it invokes the feared Inquisition of earlier centuries. The narrator of the story describes his experience of being tortured. The story inspires fear in the reader via its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing the inescapable reality of the coming doom. In this, it is unlike Poe's stories which invoke the supernatural. The tale has been adapted to film several times.

Plot summary

The unnamed narrator is brought to trial before sinister judges of the Spanish Inquisition, charged with offenses that are never stated. As seven tall white candles on a table slowly burn down, the narrator feels his hopes of survival diminishing as well. He is condemned to death, whereupon he faints and later awakens to find himself in a totally dark room. At first the prisoner thinks that he is locked in a tomb, but then he discovers that he is in a cell. He decides to explore the cell by placing a scrap of his robe against the wall so that he can count the paces around the room, but he faints before he can measure the whole perimeter.

When he reawakens, he discovers food and water nearby. He tries to measure the cell again, and finds that the perimeter measures one hundred steps. While crossing the room in the darkness, he trips on the hem of his robe and falls, his chin landing at the edge of a deep pit. He realizes that had he not tripped, he would have fallen into this pit.

After losing consciousness again, the narrator discovers that the prison is slightly illuminated and that he is strapped to a wooden frame on his back, facing the ceiling. Above him is a picture of Father Time, holding a razor-edged pendulum measuring "a foot in length from horn to horn." The pendulum is swinging back and forth and slowly descending, designed to kill the narrator eventually. However, he smears his bonds with the meat left for him to eat, which attracts rats. The rats chew through the straps, and he slips free just before the pendulum would have begun to slice into his chest.

The pendulum is withdrawn into the ceiling, and the walls become red hot and start to move inward, forcing him slowly toward the center of the room and into the pit. As he loses his last foothold and begins to topple in, he hears a roar of voices and trumpets, the walls retract, and an arm pulls him to safety. The French Army has captured the city of Toledo and the Inquisition has fallen into its enemies' hands.

Publication and response

"The Pit and the Pendulum" was included in The Gift: A Christmas and New Year's Present for 1843, edited by Eliza Leslie and published by Carey & Hart. It was slightly revised for a republication in the May 17, 1845 issue of the Broadway Journal.

William Butler Yeats was generally critical of Poe, calling him "vulgar". Of "The Pit and the Pendulum" in particular he said it does "not seem to me to have permanent literary value of any kind... Analyse the Pit and the Pendulum and you find an appeal to the nerves by tawdry physical affrightments."