Comparison Of The Pit And The Pendulum

The Lottery is told from a third person view which lets the reader see the events play out from a distance. The Pit and the Pendulum is first person which allows feelings and emotions to be clearly conveyed and you feel as though you are part of the story itself. In The Pit and the Pendulum the atmosphere is consistently dark and the author uses suspense and imagery to help create an atmosphere of tangible fear. As well the author uses near death experiences to make the story more frightening, In The Lottery the author lets the atmosphere change over time ( which is development of atmosphere), leading to a less threatening atmosphere initially but allows the reader to see the story develop over time and creates drastic change and a shocking

As well the use of repetition in The Pit and the Pendulum helps the author show the character’s state of mind and helps the reader to better understand the narrator’s feelings in the moment.

Themes:
In both stories the main theme we identified was one of fear. In The Lottery the townspeople were afraid of change and in The Pit and the Pendulum the narrator is afraid of death. Fear of change is evident in The Lottery both by the box being ancient and tattered and by the anxious murmurings that go around when townspeople talk about how other towns have given up The Lottery. In The Pit and the Pendulum the narrator does everything within his power to avoid death and, even when it seems inevitable he fights against it. Another theme in The Lottery is the normalization of sacrifice and the blatant disregard for human life. Since The Lottery is set near the present day it is

In The Lottery the worn state of the black box shows shows how the tradition is outdated and how impractical the sacrifice is. As well it shows how The Lottery is something from a different era, and something that should have been left in the past. In The Pit and the Pendulum the judges are clothed in black robes and are described as grotesque. The use of black in both stories signifies death and how in these violent deaths there is no light or warmth. As well the fear the narrator feels when he looks at the judges show how many people are scared of authority. In The Lottery the author utilizes the characters names to hint at what is to come later on in the story; Mrs. Delacroix eventually double crosses Tessie by picking up a rock so large she must use two hands. While Mr. Graves himself does not die his name symbolises how someone ends up dead and most likely buried in a grave. As well his name relates to the graveness of The Lottery which is at odds with the cheerful Mr Summers whose name represents the cheerful and light heartedness of the village prior to The Lottery. In The Pit and the Pendulum the narrator’s gaze alights on candles, which are said to resemble angels come to save him. However these burn down to nothing symbolising how everything will become nothing and how the narrator’s hope of a savior is in vain. In The Lottery slip of paper are used to draw for life. These