In his dark dungeon, the
narrator returns to consciousness and recalls how he got to be in this place. He
describes
[...] a full memory of the trial, of the judges,
of the sable draperies, of the sentence, of the sickness, of the swoon. Then entire
forgetfulness of all that followed; of all that a later day and much earnestness of endeavor
have enabled me vaguely to recall.
Up until now, he has
not even opened his eyes; he has only barely attempted to actually move his body. He has gaps in
his memories, or flashbacks, and this eventually helps him to conclude that he is being drugged.
These gaps also make him a somewhat unreliable narrator because he simply does not recall some
of what has happened to him.
The narrator's moment of "joyof hope"
even while underneath the swinging pendulum seems to foreshadow his eventual escape. He
describes "hopethe hope that triumphs on the rackthat whispers to the
death-condemned even in the dungeons of the Inquisition." This moment gives us hope, just
as the narrator is comforted by it. Even in the worst of moments, of course, we can have
hope.
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