Beginning of Essay
In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Pit and the Pendulum” and “The Masque of the Red Death”, the author uses different symbolism to illustrate the image of death. In both of these stories, death is the final result of a punishment, the end of ....

Middle of Essay
.... that the narrator’s life is in danger. The image of death becomes clearer when the narrator finds out that the pendulum is in motion. “But what mainly disturbed me was the idea that it had perceptibly descended. I now observed- with what horror it is needless to say- that its neither extremity was formed of a crescent…”(68). Death becomes impossible to prevent in this case. Especially when the pendulum keeps going down. As Poe describes, “Down- still unceasingly- still inevitably down! I gasped and struggled at each vibration…”(70) However, when we all wait to see the end, the narrator is saved by the ra ....