Comparing Suspense In Poe's The Pendulum And The Raven

Edgar Allen Poe creates an atmosphere of suspense in “The Raven” and in “The Pit and Pendulum “making the reader wonder what is going to happen next by creating confusion. The typical gothic style of Poe’s writings is very dark and cold, affecting the narrator both mentally and physically. In both “The Pit and The Pendulum” and “The Raven”, both of the narrators are being tortured. In “The Raven” the narrator is being tortured mentally while in “The Pit and The Pendulum” the narrator is being tortured physically. Poe uses many gothic elements such as setting and supernatural elements making fear one of the most important unifying effects in the narratives.
The gothic elements in “The Pit and The Pendulum” and “The Raven” share many of the same characteristics such as setting and macabre or violent incidents. In both of the narratives the narrators are trapped and being

In Poe’s “The Pit and The Pendulum” he portrays many events of pain and fear making it clear to the reader that a pendulum is torturing the narrator, as the narrator mentioned, “Twice again it swung, and a sharp sense of pain shot through every nerve”. In “The Raven” the narrator is being tortured by his lost love and feels like he is being stalked by her, as the narrator mentions “And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor”. In addition, both narratives are written in a dark, cold and dreary environment making the narratives more fear full and intriguing to read. In “The Pit and The Pendulum” the narrator is trapped in a chamber with iron walls. The narrator describes it as “the hissing vigor of its descent, sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron, still the fraying of my robe would be all that, for several minutes, it would accomplish.” The narrator is in chamber trying to get out it and the walls keep changing dimensions