“Read On!” & OUP (Oxford University Press) The Missing Link Competition Prof.ssa Cinzia Azzaretto Studente: Valeria Ottaviani AS Cl.4^B VIA ARDEATINA, 524 – ROMA Tel. 06/ – 06/ Fax 06/ – Sito web: ISTITUTO TECNICO AGRARIO STATALE “G. GARIBALDI”

 The pit and the pendulum  It is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and published for the first time in The story has a remarkable effect in inspiring fear in the reader, because of the special attention devoted to sensory perception, such as sound, which emphasize the realism. Inventor of the detective story, the literature of horror and psychological thriller, ends up becoming one of the major representatives of the gothic tale. This book is divided in six horror stories. It is written by Rosemary Border. Ghost stories

One of the six stories about this is book is “Smee”: There was Christmas Eve too and Tony Jackson was having dinner withhis friends, and an unknown cold and pale girl. After dinner they wanted to play something. So that, Reggie suggested to play Smee. Almost nobody knew what it was like. So Reggie explained the rules. He said that first of all someone should count all the players and have a sheet of paper for each one and just in one paper must be written the word “Smee”. Then the papers had to be mixed and everyone should take a paper, and the person who had the paper with the word “Smee”, he/she should hide somewhere nobody could found her/him, but if the paper was in blank, he/she should try to find Smee. But the two most important rules were that all the game should be played with no lights and that Smee mustn´t answer to the other players if he/she was Smee.

The pit and the pendulum The story tells of the torture of a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition. The narrator of the story is liable for unspecified crimes and confined in a completely dark cell. In an attempt to determine the size of the room and given the overwhelming darkness deep as the same trips and falls recognizing that they escaped to a terrible end, or fall into a pit, located at the center of the cell, the capacity unknown. He lost consciousness again waking up lying on a low wooden frame, completely tied by the feet to the head. After a long time you realize that a large sharp knife shaped pendulum is suspended above him: his increasingly rapid and inexorable movement is such as to make him predict that it will soon be cut close to the chest.

Precences in the dark The issue under consideration is the fear of darkness, and appearances that may be there and that we imagine. In both texts the scenes are dominated by darkness, from which monstrous creatures (ghost stories) or from wich come from unexpected situations (the pit and the pendulum; completely tied up with a knife hanging on his chest)

Edgar Allan Poe  He was born in Boston n 1809.He is one of the most important representatives of the gothic genre, but he is detached from the environments, however, typical of Gothic and develops more psychological aspects, investigating between obsessions and personal nightmares;. Inventor of the detective story, the literature of horror and psychological thriller, ends up becoming one of the major representatives of the gothic tale.