Wednesday, March 22, 2006

The Pit and the Pendulum - Part 2

The story goes on a crescendo .

What's going to happen next? We hold our breath, expecting for the outcome. And then? We want to read more to know what will happen...

Do you have the same feeling?

Well, in this part of the story, the prisoner is describing the moment when he woke up and looked up at the ceiling. He says "Time also had a long, sharp scythe. Every living thing is killed by time".

  • What does he mean by that? Is the author also talking about our own lives? Do you feel the same?


  • Why did the prisoner rub spiced meat onto the rope that was around his body? What will happen next?


  • I'm anxiously waiting for your wonderful ideas in the "comment area".

    Carla

    5 comments:

    Anonymous said...

    Karen.

    I guess that he meant that everything which has life, certainly will die one day. Dying is a matter of time. I agree that nothing will be alive forever. However, the difference is you believing if there will be something after dying, or not.

    He rubbed the spiced meat onto the rope that was around his body for the rats bite it and he gets free. I think the rats will bite all the rope, but he will not to get leave from cell.

    Anonymous said...

    Hi, Carla. I'm very curious about the end of this story.I'm thinking this story very interesting.
    When he says "time also had a long sharp scythe. Every living thing is killed by time", I think the author also talking about our own lives. He is very frightened, he is thinking that his death is near.
    In fact, the plants, the animals, the people, everything that is alive will die a day, it's certain.
    The prisoner rub spiced meat onto the rope that was around his body, because there are a lot rats and they are looking at him with their sharp, pointed teeth, so he thinks that the rats will kill him. As he is tied by rope, he will rub spiced meat onto its to the rats go away and left him free, in peace.
    I guess the rats will eat the spiced meat and they will die, thousands of them and the man will cry, cry very loud that an ange will appear to solve him.
    What a nightmare!
    Marilda

    Anonymous said...

    The prisioner was frightened because his death was arriving. At the any moment the scythe would kill him. It means than the death comes to everybody anytime. We don't know "when", but it's a certainty.
    The man rubbed the spice meat onto the rope in order to the rats to gnaw the rope and he to get scape.

    Anonymous said...

    It seems our hero is getting deeper in a dangerous situation, what a poor guy, what has he done? I guess that with the act of rubbing spiced meat on the rope he intends to get free (because of the rats) and scape from the scythe, but I also guess that he will try to use the scythe to cut the rope. Regarding to the pictures on the ceiling and the thinking about the "killing" time, that's an absolute true, nobody will live forever, but the transformation of time in a human figure sounds poetic as a need of identify a guilty for the death in general. But I guess that death takes part of a cycle of renovation. Perhaps a good association is to relate the world with a tree and the life in the world with the leaves of the tree, the leaves are born, grow, fall, enter in a decomposition state to be abosorbed by the tree and finally take part in the borning of new leaves.

    testecarla said...

    Dear Karen, Marilda, Kelly,and Emerson,

    You were profound and dealt with different interpretations of the author's view in relation to time and death. Emerson, I loved your metaphor comparing life with the leaves of a tree.

    Marilda, certainly he thinks about time because he knows death is near. It's a moment we take to go back and reflect upon our own existence.

    Just as Kelly and Karen mentioned. "Death comes to everybody". Based on Karen's thoughts I ask you, Do you believe there is life after death? Does life seem shorter when death is close?