The "Tell-Tale Heart" is a monologue of the narrator's thoughts as he proceeds with the killing of a defenseless man. The narrator proclaims his sanity several times at the beginning of the story. He says, "You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded..."(Poe 107).

"He has created a universe, given it psychological laws without denying the existence of moral law, and peopled it with characters appropriate to such a universe. Putting overt morality out of bounds helps to give him uniqueness"(74).

Poe uses the first person for two reasons. The thoughts and psyche are completely revealed to the reader, and the reader is not left with questions of what the narrator was thinking. The reality experienced is filter through the mind of the narrator. This style of storytelling is a common pattern is Poe's writing. "The Cask of Amontillado" follows this pattern by allowing the reader to once again experience the thoughts and feelings of the narrator.

Poe uses the elements of torture in "The Pit and the Pendulum" to depict the ability of the mind to torture itself. The dungeon is used to depict the mentality of consciousness of the victimized. When one is victimized he or she retreats further from the stimulus deeper into the depths of the mind. The pit is an escape door to retreat further into unconsciousness. The dungeon is dark and filled with devices of torture, alluding to the idea of a tortured mind. Poe illustrates that one's own mind is the enemy, which he or she must defeat. The mind posses the power to breath horror into the inanimate world, and can haunt the mind.

Lawrence depicts the main character in Poe's story as being consumed by the need to consume another's soul, but what is focused upon by Poe is the rationality which governs and accompanies these drives of the insane. Poe's characters believe that they are sane; however, the reader posses the ability to step away from the views of the narrator and see the insanity imbedded in their logic. The mind posses the ability to bend the laws of morality to fulfill the desires imbedded within its foundation. This ability is what leads to the classification of being mad. These two criticisms of Poe's works mirror one another the first critic states that the characters create their own set of laws in order to fulfill the needs of his soul. The latter critic, Henry Lawrence, also defends this argument by supporting it with the need of these characters' souls to destroy harmony. He shows why it is necessary for these characters to create an alternative set of moral standards.

Poe uses the dungeon as an inescapable stimulus for the study of the mind. The character does not plunge himself into the pit allowing him to remain in the gray area between consciousness and unconsciousness. Though he does not plunge into the pit he moves between the two states, as he is often seen swooning and waking in different torture devices. Poe is showing his reader the choice one has by possessing an imagination to retreat from reality into one' own mind or stay in reality. The retreat here is a much more favorable choice because every time the narrator awake he is in a new torture device; however, the main character chooses to remain conscious, and is saved by the general of the French army at the close of the story. The character is brought back into reality out of the depths of the pit. The general alludes to the saving grace of divine figure responsible for retrieving the human psyche from the depths of hell. The character is awakened from his gray state, and has escaped the torture of his mind. Had he stayed unconscious he would have died due to the torture devices. The narrator escapes from his semi-unconscious state, and ventures into reality away from the demons of his mind. Poe seems to be showing his readers the ability to create hell, and create a "dungeon of torture" within ones own mind. The hell one experiences is not in the physical world, but within the depths of the mind.

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Approximate Word count = 3467
Approximate Pages = 14 (250 words per page double spaced)