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The black cat edgar allen poe essay
The black cat edgar allen poe essay
The black cat edgar allen poe essay
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Lucio Fulci 's The Black Cat is featured in Arrow 's phenomenal Edgar Allan Poe 's Black Cats Limited Edition, which also features the fantastically named Sergio Martino film Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key (the review can be read here). The Arrow Box set is limited to 3000 copies and comes with an impressive limited edition 80-page booklet containing new articles on the films, Lucio Fulci’s last ever interview and a reprint of Poe’s original story. The box set contains the two films in a nice hard cardboard case and each film also has reversible sleeves showcasing the original and newly commissioned artwork. It 's a stellar package and worth the price. Now, with that said, let 's get on with the review of Fulci 's The Black Cat, which is a very loose adaption of Poe 's Black Cat short story.
PRODUCT INFORMATION
DISCS: 2 (1 Blu-ray, 1 DVD)
RUN-TIME: 91 min
ASPECT RATIO: 2.35:1
RESOLUTION: 1080p
AUDIO: English/Italian: Uncompressed PCM Mono 1.0
LANGUAGE: English/Italian
SUBTITLES: English/English SDH
REGION: A/B
RATING: NR
PRODUCTION DATE: 1981
RELEASE DATE: Oct 27, 2015
PLOT SUMMARY
In The Black Cat, from that “other” Godfather of Gore, Lucio Fulci (Zombie), Scotland Yard Inspector Gorley (David Warbeck, The Beyond) find himself summoned to a sleepy English village to investigate the recent murder of a young couple. With no obvious signs of entry at the murder scene, Gorley is forced to start considering the possibility that his suspect may not be human…
MOVIE
If there is one thing you are guaranteed when you watch a Fulci movie, it 's a flick that is damn hard to follow. The Black Cat starts off with so many random scenes, I had no idea where this film was headed. We 've got a killer cat, a couple m...
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...ms from the original camera negatives
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) and Standard Definition DVD presentations
Original Italian and English soundtracks in mono audio (uncompressed PCM on the Blu-rays)
Newly translated English subtitles for the Italian soundtracks
Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for the English soundtracks
Limited Edition 80-page booklet containing new articles on the films, Lucio Fulci’s last ever interview and a reprint of Poe’s original story
VERDICT
The Black Cat is a confusing flick, but one that is still beautiful to watch. It may not be Fulci at his best, but fans should still check it out, especially if you have a hankering for Poe tales. The Arrow Blu-ray is just one-half of the awesome Black Cats box set and there is nothing wrong with the disc in my opinion. This flick and Blu comes highly recommended.
RATING
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Collected Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: The Modern Library 1992
The Black Cat is a short story written in the first person. The narrator, a man, who never gives his name is already in prison and awaiting death from the onset of the story. He tells us the story of how he went from being a gentlemen and a loving husband to a murderer. First, he tells us about his cat, Pluto, and how he gauged one of its eyes out in an alcohol fueled rage He eventually kills his cat simply because it had loved him. In a weird twist, the narrator finds another cat that looks very much like Pluto. At first he was smitten with the cat, but slowly began to feel an immense hatred for the creature. In a fit of rage he tries killing the cat with an axe. His wife intervenes, and in turn, she is the one who receives the death blow to the head. He tries hiding his deed, but the cat ends up giving him away when the police come calling.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of America’s most celebrated classical authors, known for his unique dealings within the horror genre. Poe was a master at utilizing literary devices such as point of view and setting to enhance the mood and plot of his stories leading to his widespread appeal that remains intact to this day. His mastery of aforementioned devices is evident in two of his shorter works “The Black Cat” and “The Cask of Amontillado”.
Walker, I. M., ed. Edgar Allen Poe: A Critical Heritage. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986.
Redfield, J. S. "The Genius of Poe." Foreword. The Works of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. A.C. Armstrong & Son.
Poe has been one of the most influential American authors of all time. Even 165 years after his death, he is still easily recognized by many people throughout the United States. His work has influenced a myriad of different genres of media. Andrew Taylor, a writer for an online newspaper called The Guardian, wrote: “One reason why he is still so important today is that his stories, in particular, have shown an extraordinary capacity to mutate into other media” (www.theguardian.com). Most...
Poe uses the narrator’s perverse desires to harm the cat to emphasize his masculine declination. The narrator blames the cat for his actions rather than taking responsibility for his own perverse desires. The narrator states that “the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman” (2501). The narrator is unable to place the blame on himself because he does not possess masculine qualities, which would allow him to take responsibility for his actions. The cat is used to symbolize feminine desires as a black cat is commonly associated with witches, sorcery, and evil. Women were commonly associated with witches and black cats in the eighteenth century. The narrator feels inferior to his wife, which contributes to his increasing feminine qualities. Thus, the cat adds to the narrator’s perverse desires which propels him to lose masculine
Roderick, Phillip L. The Fall of the House of Poe and Other essays. New York Lincoln: iUniverse, Inc., 2006. 2,3,10. Print.
Meyers, Jeffrey. Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square, 2000. Print.
Overwhelmingly, truth was lost within this unreliable narrator’s world. It is a repeated theme throughout many of Poe’s works that a guilty conscious is one of the most detrimental things a person can possess. Often times, within his stories, the main character dies due to his or her guilty conscious and “The Black Cat” is no different. The narrator’s warped sense of reality was ultimately the reason for his demise. Poe seems to be warning readers, through his numerous works, that it may or may not be a good thing to have a guilt conscious.
Ljungquist, Kent. Poe, Edgar Allan. Ed. Paul A. Kobasa. P.15. Chicago: Scott Fetzer company, 2012.
"The Black Cat" is an example of this kind of story. In this morbid look into
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).
One of the staples of Poe's writing is the dramatic effect it has on the reader. Poe is known for his masterful use of grotesque, and often morbid, story lines and for his self-destructive characters and their ill-fated intentions. "The Black Cat" is no different from any of his other stories, and thus a Pragmatic/Rhetorial interpretation is obviously very fitting. If Pragmatic/Rhetorical criticism focuses on the effect of a work on its audience, then "The Black Cat" serves as a model for all other horror stories. One of the most intriguing aspects Poe introduces into the story is the black cat itself. The main character initially confesses a partiality toward domestic pets, especially his cat. Most readers can identify with an animal lover, even if they themselves are not. It is not long though before the reader learns of the disease that plagues the main character - alcoholism. Again, the reader can identify with this ailment, but it is hard to imagine that alcoholism could be responsible for the heinous actions made by the main character. In a drunken rage the main character cuts out one of the cat's eyes with a pen knife, and act at which he even shudders. Then, only after the cat's slow recovery from that attack, does the man hang the cat from the limb of a tree. ...
From this story we can see the black cat bring some bad or negative thing to narrator’s family, in our life we should leave those evil things away to keep our life be safety. And also we should keep our mind be clear, don't let other unclear or bad things to affect our mind and our life. Also we should try to do some positive thing, go to some positive activity. Avoid same thing happen in our life, just keep away from that negative