# The Pit and the Pendulum - what was in the pit?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pit-and-the-pendulum-what-was-in-the-pit/693196>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 15, 2014, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pit-and-the-pendulum-what-was-in-the-pit/693196 "2014-07-15T18:58:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pit-and-the-pendulum-what-was-in-the-pit/693196/41 "2014-07-17T16:05:40Z")

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> [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](#):
>
> From _The Annotated Edgar Allan Poe_ by Stephen Peithman (1981):He cites several explanations:
> 
> - Marie Bonaparte sees the hero as caught between male (pendulum) and female (pit) and recoiling from both, indicative of Poe’s suppressed homosexual nature. He cannot let the scimitar “enter and split his heart – the scimitar replacing the phallus” and cannot enter the pit (female sex organ) either.

Of COURSE it’s all about suppressed homosexuality, how could it not be?

And after looking up a little on Marie Bonaparte, yep, she was a buddy of Freud’s.

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**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\
**Post date:** [July 17, 2014, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pit-and-the-pendulum-what-was-in-the-pit/693196/42 "2014-07-17T21:54:32Z")

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Here we thought he was imprisoned for heresy. Having gay relations? One is as good as the other, when the Inquisition wants you to suffer.

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**Author:** ![Hail\_Ants](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/dc4da7/32.png) [@Hail\_Ants](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hail_Ants)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2014, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-pit-and-the-pendulum-what-was-in-the-pit/693196/43 "2014-07-21T00:40:10Z")

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Admittedly I haven’t read much classic literature, so I hope I don’t sound too stupid to admit that all these years all I thought was supposed to be in ‘the pit’ was…

wait for it…

The slicing pendulum itself! IOW the ‘pit’ was just the room/dungeon/chamber/whatever that it resided in! That the title was just meant to mean The Pit _ **with** _ the Pendulum. :smack:

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