The document summarizes a group's interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Pit and the Pendulum" presented in a comedy thriller genre. Key points of their interpretation include naming the characters, changing the conversation between the main character and judge to be more humorous, adding a talking rabbit character for children's understanding, using spinach to represent hope and a means of escape, and ending on a twist with the main character being rescued by a lady. The goal was to make the horror elements more accessible while exploring the characters and story further.

1. THE MONSTERS
NIK MOHD SYAMIL BIN NIK RASDIN A143847
AINE-MAIZURIE BINTI ZAINAL ABIDIN A143855
NATALIAH JOSEPH A143852
MARYAM BINTI AZIZAN A143843

2.  Edgar Allan Poe did not named all the characters involved
in order to sustain the mystery atmosphere throughout the
story. As the main character was being tortured without a
clear explanation of his crime, it depicts the injustice
political state of that era. Since he never actually admitted
his crime, the judges decided to punish him cruelly by
tying him under a sharp swinging pendulum. Edgar Allan
Poe decided to do this because he wants to show a type of
torture that happened during Spanish Inquisition. Other
than that, it is to show that in the Spanish Inquisition era,
torturing is the only way to make people confessed their
crime even though they did not commit it.

3. The reason why Pit was chosen as the setting rather than
a dungeon or a prison and pendulum was chosen as a
torture element rather than other torture method was
because it will give a detailed sense of imagery to the
reader. For examples, when the prisoner smelled a
burning candle, it shows the olfactory imagery. Next,
when he was trying to measure the parameter of the pit,
it shows tactile imagery. Then, the gustatory imagery
was shown in the short story when the prisoner ate the
rat’s leftover. The auditory imagery was also shown when
he heard the pendulum swings above him when he was
tied up which create an intense moment for him. Last
but not least, is the sight imagery where the prisoner saw
the drawing of father time at the ceiling above him. The
father time symbolizes eternity thus, made him believe
that the torture is forever.

4.  The theme of The Pitt and The Pendulum is fear as it shows
the guy’s frightening emotion of what is happening to him.
The theme fear is the main theme because it describes the
condition of the terrible place, the sound of the sharp
pendulum swinging on top of his body and the time when
the judge convicted the man in a very dark place.
Additionally, there was also an emphasis on perseverance
where the guy was trying his best to survive the torture.
 In our presentation, we interpreted the story as a comedy
thriller genre. This genre blends both threat and comedic
element so that the audience may accept the thriller idea
easily. Since The Pit and The Pendulum is a general horror
short story that probably be read by all ages, making a
comedy thriller interpretation was the best choice of all.

5. 1. Naming the characters:
 We chose to name the characters because it will give a
clear portrayal of each characters and they are easier to be
recognize. Aside from that, it allows the audience to play
with their imagination with the characters. For example,
the main character, Barney has been chosen as the name
symbolizes a barn or a dungeon.

6. 2. The guy’s and the judge’s conversation
 We chose to change the atmosphere of the conversation
between the guy and the judge from dark and cold to
humorous and straightforward because it will be more
understandable to readers and viewers. Since the
original text did not mention the actual reason of his
conviction readers might not understand why the guy’s
been arrested so, we chose to simplify it by showing it
in our presentation.

7. 3. The guy’s and the talking animal
 As you know, in the original text the guy did not talk
to anyone else except for himself. However, in our
presentation, we added a magical sense by creating a
talking rabbit. Due to the fact that The Pit and The
Pendulum is a general reading material, we were
trying to have a character that meets children’s
imagination so that they can comprehend the story
better.

8. 4. The spinach as a medium of escapism.
 Even though in the most dark, horrific place such as
the basement where light can barely reach, there is
still hope. In our interpretation, the spinach is the
symbol of hope for the main character to escape from
the dungeon. In fact, the spinach also triggers Barney’s
inner strength to free himself. Spinach is also seen as a
magic realism because the audience might see the
spinach as a normal vegetable but it actually gives
Barney the power to survive the death from the
punishment.

9. 5. The ending twist
 We end our short movie with Barney running away
with the lady to allow audiences to wonder what will
happen next after Barney has escaped with her.
Besides that, it also allows the audiences to guess the
characters development between them whether both
of them will fall in love or the lady will kill Barney
instead. In addition, we chose the lady to save Barney
in order to change audiences’ perception of gender-
bias that only men can be a savior.