Personification in The Pit and the Pendulum

The adjective “acrid” refers to an unpleasant or pungent taste or odor. As the pendulum descends closer and closer to the narrator’s body, the narrator personifies the pendulum as a creature that “fans” him with “its acrid breath,” invoking olfactory imagery to demonstrate its diabolical qualities.

After the narrator opens his eyes, he sees that he is enveloped in darkness. Through personification, the narrator writes that the blackness encompasses, oppresses, and stifles him; the atmosphere, he writes, is “intolerably close.” This technique creates a sense of claustrophobia and confinement—the narrator fears the nothingness that surrounds and traps him.