Alcohol and Madness: An Analysis of 'The Black Cat'

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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

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