“Lasalle”: A Clue to a “Positive” Reading of “The Pit and the Pendulum”

“Lasalle”: A Clue to a “Positive” Reading of “The Pit and the Pendulum” In “From Room to Room: A Note on the Ending of ‘The Pit and the Pendulum”’ [PoeStudies/Darlc Romanticism 31 (1998): 35-36], Steven Carter argues that the translation “the room” or “the chamber ” for the name Lasalle, the general who rescues the narrator/victim of the Inquisition in Poe’s tale, “tips the delicate balance [between ‘positive’ and ‘negative’readings] in favor of a ‘negative’reading” (35). However, at least two previous commentators whom Carter has apparently overlooked make use of the same word play in support of “positive” interpretations . The interested reader is referred to Joseph J. Moldenhauer, “Murder as a Fine Art: Basic Connections between Poe’s Aesthetics, Psychology , and Moral Vision” [PMLA83 (May 1968): 2961, and my own The Rationale of Deception in Poe [(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Univ. Press, 1979), 2041. David Ketterer Concordia University, Montreal 64 ...