Read the selection below from the short story “the pit and the pendulum” by edgar allan poe and answer the question that follows.
amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like balm. i rushed to its deadly brink. i threw my straining vision below. the glare from the enkindled roof illumined its inmost recesses. yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse to comprehend the meaning of what i saw. at length it forced—it wrestled its way into my soul—it burned itself in upon my shuddering reason. o for a voice to speak! —oh, horror! —oh, any horror but this! with a shriek i rushed from the margin and buried my face in my hands—weeping bitterly.
how is the madness of the narrator portrayed in the passage above?

each sentence of the passage indicates the narrator's madness. the first sentence shows madness in that the narrator seems to indicate that he is going to throw himself into the pit to escape the "fiery destruction." sentences two through four show the narrator running to the pit to possibly throw himself in. he is "straining" to see whether or not throwing himself into the pit is a viable option—of course, we know that the pit was initially designed to kill him, so it is obviously not a viable option. the narrator, in his madness, has forgotten this crucial element. the language of the fifth and sixth sentence is what shows the narrator's madness with the words, "it forced—it wrestled its way into my soul—it burned itself upon my shuddering reason." the choice of language indicates how frenzied and out of his mind the narrator is. the seventh sentence of the passage, with the words, "oh, horror! —oh, any horror but this! " further portray the madness of the narrator. using a word like "horror" to describe the situation shows the reader that the narrator is no longer capable of any sort of rational thought. our narrator concludes the passage in a state of total despair: he has no other possible solution but to cry and hope that the end comes soon.

a question like this requires the excerpt to be included in order to answer the question.

b would have to be the answer