The narrative technique that bears the most tension in the readings of "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allen Poe (1843) and "After Twenty Years" by O. Henry (1906) is the setting.
The setting as a narrative technique describes the time and place that an event takes place in a story.
The setting of Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" was in a cell with burning walls, symbolizing death. On the other hand, the setting of O. Henry's "After Twenty Years" was at a New York street, where Bob and Jimmy had originally agreed to meet again after twenty years.
The same narrative technique of setting was the most effective in both stories.
Thus, Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" concentrated on scenes where the unreliable narrator was tried and sentenced to death, just as O. Henry's "After Twenty Years" dwelt on the scene where Bob was cut by the long hand of justice for a crime through his long-time friend, Jimmy.
