Compare/contrast "The Pit and The Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe and "In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka in terms of the different torture technologiesandthelegal systems they represent. Be sure to address the following questions in your analysis:

1. What symbolic dimensions do the torture technologies depicted in each story have? For instance, why do the Inquisitors try to push the protagonist/narrator into a pit in Poe's story? Also, what could be the symbolic meaning of the pendulum torture? In Kafka's story, why are the drawings used in the apparatus for the inscription of the sentence illegible to the human eye? Also, what could be the meaning of the apparatus's malfunctioning at the end of the story?