Writing from jail the day before his execution, the unnamed narrator of “The Black Cat” says, “Mad would I be to expect” belief of the “wild, yet most homely narrative” which he describes. Like the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” he proclaims, “mad am I not,” but even he has a difficult time believing “a case where my very senses reject their own evidence.” Despite his claims of sanity, the narrator commits some truly deranged and psychotic acts of violence throughout the story, which are difficult to comprehend. The narrator may suffer from a mental illness, or he may not, but by his own admission, after several years of marriage, he developed a severe drinking problem, which likely altered his perception of reality, and contributed significantly …show more content…
He, his wife, and their servant barely escape with their lives, however all of their wealth and possessions are destroyed. The next day, when he visits the ruins, he finds that the wall behind his bed is still standing, and emblazoned upon it is the image of Pluto with a noose around his neck. In an attempt to rationalize this “apparition,” he logics that someone must have cut the animal down and thrown it through the window in an attempt to “arouse” him from sleep, and that the “falling of the other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster.” With the destruction of their home, the narrator and his wife, now destitute, are forced to move. While drinking at a “den of more than infamy,” he finds a large, black cat “closely resembling” Pluto, but bearing a large white splotch on his …show more content…
Refusing once again to take responsibility for his actions, the narrator blames the cat for the murder and vows to kill it. That night, he says, “I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!” After several days, the police arrive to search the building, and once again find nothing. When the police have concluded and begin exiting the cellar, the narrator, like the narrator of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” foolishly draws attention to the hidden body, sealing his own fate. As he sits in prison, awaiting death, he attempts to downplay the incident by stating that his story is “a series of mere household events,” and questions, “Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not?” as if the unfortunate events that have transpired could happen to anyone. He blames, in turn, “a fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured,” the “spirit of perverseness,” and, finally, the cat, without any sense of awareness of the role that his own choices
Poe carefully details the most brutal scenes of his stories, a quality shared by many of his works. Within “The Black Cat,” three situations stand to illustrate Poe’s message: when the narrator stabs out Pluto’s eye, when the narrator hangs Pluto, and when the narrator murders his wife. Before the first violent act described in the story, the narrator is known to be a drunkard who abused his wife. No matter how despicable this may be, he is still a somewhat ordinary man. Nothing majorly sets him apart from any another, relating him to the common man. However, his affinity towards alcohol, led to “the fury of a demon” (2) that came over him as he “grasped the poor beast by the throat” (2) and proceeded to “cut one of its eyes from the socket.” (2) Poe’s gruesome description of the narrator as a destructive demon, one who was awakened by alcohol, connects his behavior to the common working-class man. Alcohol is a legal drug that can be obtained by many, and when consumed in excess leads to the uncontrollable madness that ensued. The descriptions of the act plants fear into the hearts of the readers, especially those who have consumed alcohol, of ever becoming such a
How a man can engage in such evil acts by the sole reaction of the human reflex. The short stories of “The Tale Tell Heart” and “The Black Cat” share many similarities with each other but they are also very different in many ways. One similarity which both accomplish is the themes they represent of murder and the belief in supernatural events caused by their own insanity. In “The Tell Tale Heart” “Poe 's confessional tale features a psychologically ill protagonist who recalls his grisly murder of an old man” (Zimmerman 342) as mentioned is exactly that as it is about a man who felt justified in killing a man because “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so, by degrees very gradually I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” (The Tell Tale Heart 691) as the main character states. According to the main character, the old man’s eye was causing his insanity and it was his justification for killing him. This shares a similarity with the other
The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is the story of a woman spiralling into madness whilst her physician husband refuses to acknowledge that she has a "real" problem. On the other hand The Black Cat by Edgar Alan Poe is about a man who is initially fond of cats however as the plot progresses he becomes an alcoholic making him moody and violent, which lead him to torture and kills the animals and eventually also his wife. In Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat," symbolism is used to show the narrator’s capacity for violence, madness, and guilt .The recurring theme present in both these stories is that the main protagonists claim that they suffer or have been taken over by a form of madness. In this essay I shall examine the various symbolism used by the writer's to represent madness.
The short story the “Black Cat” begins with the narrator of the story telling his side of events that have occurred throughout his life. When first being introduced to the narrator you can tell something is off with him. The narrator is originally a well-put together man he has a wife and many of different animals but has a much greater love for one of his animals named Pluto a black cat. As the life of the narrator goes on he falls into a drinking problem he cant stop drinking and when he does drink he gets violent. One night when
In “The Black Cat”, the main character is consumed so much by his madness, which grows more and more as the story goes on and eventually ends with him being put in jail for murder of his wife. The madness first starts when his love for his black cat, Pluto,turns to utter hatred. He stabs out the
Furthermore, Poe’s plot development added much of the effect of shocking insanity to “The Black Cat.” To dream up such an intricate plot of perverseness, alcoholism, murders, fire, revival, and punishment is quite amazing. This story has almost any plot element you can imagine a horror story containing. Who could have guessed, at the beginning of the story, that narrator had killed his wife? The course of events in “The Black Cat’s” plot is shockingly insane by itself! Moreover, the words in “The Black Cat” were precisely chosen to contribute to Poe’s effect of shocking insanity. As the narrator pens these he creates a splendidly morbid picture of the plot. Perfectly selected, sometimes rare, and often dark, his words create just the atmosphere that he desired in the story.
Gargano, James W. “’The Black Cat’: Perverseness Reconsidered.” Twentieth Century Interpretations of Poe’s Tales. Ed. William L. Howarth. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1971. 87-94. Print.
The presence of the two cats in the tale allows the narrator to see himself for who he truly is. In the beginning the narrator explains that his “tenderness of heart made him the jest of his companions”. (251) He also speaks of his love for animals that has remained with him from childhood into manhood. However, Poe contradicts this description of the narrator when he seems to become annoyed with the cat that he claims to love so much. While under the influence of alcohol the narrator is “fancied that the cat avoided his presence”(250) and as a result decides to brutally attack the cat. This black cat symbolizes the cruelty received by slaves from whites. The narrator not only “deliberately cuts one of the cats eyes from the sockets” (250) but he also goes on to hang the cat. Once the narrator successfully hangs the cat the tale begins to take a very dark and gothic-like turn. The racism and guilt of the narrator continues to haunt him once he has killed the black cat. Th...
Tell-Tale Heart, written by Edgar Allan Poe, depicts the inner conflict of a murderer as he retells his story of how he came to kill the old man as a means to prove his sanity. The story is told in the point of view of an unreliable narrator, of whom is greatly disturbed by the eye of a geriatric man. The eye in question is described as evil, irritating the narrator beyond his comprehension, to the point when he has no choice but to get rid of the vexation by destroying the eye. This short story is similar to The Black Cat, of which is also penned by Poe. In The Black Cat, the narrator, albeit unreliable, describes his wrongdoings to the reader. He tells his story of how he murdered his wife, killed one of the two cats, and trapped the other
The narrator usually is telling the story almost like he is talking to someone, that someone being the readers. Poe sets up “Black Cat” with the narrator telling the readers he is not mad but then his story tells the exact opposite. Poe writes very Gothic style fiction in which Poe 's characters suffer from self-destruction. In the settings in “Black Cat” the narrator has already destroyed himself due to his alcoholism which he calls it a disease. As Poe uses keen detail on how the narrator goes into madness, readers see the narrator at the end as he tells that he is finally able to rest. The narrator says “It did not make its appearance during the night and thus for one night at least, since the introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept.” (700). He is able to rest because of the cat is not there to taunt him. Though he killed his wife it’s the fact that the beast, a name he calls the cat, is not there so he is able to have a great nights rest for the next 3 days. He follows up that quote with “The second and third day passes, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed a freeman. The monster in terror had fled the premises forever” (700)! He has paranoia because of the cat. The cat was unlike Pluto because the cat showed him affection as later on in the years due to abuse Pluto ran away from the narrator. He finds it strange that the cat looks like Pluto, with the gouged eye and all,
In “The Tell Tale Heart” Edgar Allan Poe builds up suspense by guiding us through the darkness that dwells inside his character’s heart and mind. Poe masterfully demonstrates the theme of guilt and its relationship to the narrator’s madness. In this classic gothic tale, guilt is not simply present in the insistently beating heart. It insinuates itself earlier in the story through the old man’s eye and slowly takes over the theme without remorse. Through his writing, Poe directly attributes the narrator’s guilt to his inability to admit his illness and offers his obsession with imaginary events - The eye’s ability to see inside his soul and the sound of a beating heart- as plausible causes for the madness that plagues him. After reading the story, the audience is left wondering whether the guilt created the madness, or vice versa.
Edgar Allen Poe’s short story The Black Cat immerses the reader into the mind of a murdering alcoholic. Poe himself suffered from alcoholism and often showed erratic behavior with violent outburst. Poe is famous for his American Gothic horror tales such as the Tell-Tale Heart and the Fall of the House of Usher. “The Black Cat is Poe’s second psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. He added a new element to aid in evoking the dark side of the narrator, and that is the supernatural world.” (Womack). Poe uses many of the American Gothic characteristics such as emotional intensity, superstition, extremes in violence, the focus on a certain object and foreshadowing lead the reader through a series of events that are horrifying and grotesque. “The Black Cat is one of the most powerful of Poe’s stories, and the horror stops short of the wavering line of disgust” (Quinn).
In "The Black Cat," the author, Edgar Allan Poe, uses a first person narrator who is portrayed as a maniac. Instead of having a loving life with his wife and pets, the narrator has a cynical attitude towards them due to his mental instability as well as the consumption of alcohol. The narrator is an alcoholic who takes out his own insecurities on his family. It can be very unfortunate and in some cases even disastrous to be mentally unstable. Things may take a turn for the worst when alcohol is involved, not only in the narrator's case, but in many other cases as well. Alcohol has numerous affects on people, some people may have positive affects while others, like the narrator in "The Black Cat," may have negative affects like causing physical and mental abuse to those he loved. The combination of the narrator's mental instability along with the consumption of alcohol caused the narrator to lose control of his mind as well as his actions leading him to the brink of insanity. Though the narrator is describing his story in hopes that the reader feels sympathy towards him, he tries to draw the attention to his abuse of alcohol to demonstrate the negative affects that it can take on your life as well as destroy it in the end.
Even after he has tried to kill the cat, or maimed it, it comes back to him, seemingly having the supernatural ability to stay alive, and the crazy desire to stay with him.
Edgar Allan Poe's classic tale, "The Black Cat," is a disturbing story that delves into the contrasts between reality and fantasy, insanity and logic, and life and death. To decipher one distinct meaning presented in this story undermines the brilliance of Poe's writing. Multiple meanings can be derived from "The Black Cat," which lends itself perfectly to many approaches of critical interpretation.