Figurative Language In The Black Cat

Anger, fear, and hatred all are characteristics of the evil. They are qualities that lurk in every man’s heart, lying dormant like a bat in a cave until the time is ripe to come out and hunt. Some people can hold the bat back, some let the bat go free, and for others the bat is overcome with its freedom that it forgets how to think. Those people, the ones who become drunk on their own freedom, are the ones who become insane. Using foreboding word choice and horrific imagery, Edgar Allen Poe in his short story “The Black Cat” describes the narrator’s diabolic actions to convey the message that untamed anger leads to insanity – even in the most collected individual.
Edgar Allen Poe utilizes increasingly dismal words within his story to create

an ominous mood that quickly escalates to a much more sinister undertone as the story progresses. The narrator’s insanity becomes gradually more obvious, creating the sense of dread within the read as he or she fears what he will do. When the story begins, the narrator states he would be recalling “a series of mere household events” (Poe 1) from his perspective. “Mere” implies simple, uneventful things that an everyday person would encounter. However, immediately after he declares that those same uneventful events “have terrified – have tortured – have destroyed me,” (Poe 1) an apparent contradiction to his previous statement. This immediately renders the narrator untrustworthy. As Shmoop University observes, he “is candid enough about some hideous crimes, but we still get the feeling he's being cryptic” (Shmoop 1) and the reader questions what kind of events are both simple and horrific. Clearly none exist, so it can be assumed that the events are ghastly from the words “tortured” and “destroyed,” leaving the reader to wonders what they could be. Although his ire is not yet evident, he presents his collected side. He does not seem insane yet, but his true self is soon to awaken.
Poe continues to build apprehension as the story continues.

The narrator talks about his life; he explains his love for animals, especially his black cat named Pluto, and his marriage to a kind wife. His car is described as a completely black and healthy animal who deeply loves the narrator, a contrast to his own drunken and moody demeanor. The name “Pluto” in itself is a method of foreshadowing, as Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld, implicating future death. Pluto’s relation to witchcraft, as noted by the narrator’s wife who “made frequent allusion to the ancient notion which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise”(1) alludes to the supposedly supernatural events that occur in the story. Roberta Reader, while analyzing the significance of Pluto, theorizes that the cat symbolizes the narrator’s attitude towards his cat “as something dark, fearful, and unknown” (Reader 1). The narrator from that start is filled with superstition and fury that he has repressed. His beatings and his acrimony have pushed others away from him, so he is unnerved by his one friend that he has managed to

keep.
Early messages about the narrator’s wife also hint towards the impending doom that he brought upon her. In regards to his wife, the narrator calmly exclaims that in his fits of rage he “even offered her personal violence” (Poe 1). For admitting to domestic abuse, he does so in a way that admits no shame or embarrassment. Martha Womack notes that this demonstrates how Poe “makes the reader believe more violence is sure to come” (Womack 1). He has gotten accustomed to violent acts and sees them as a normal occurrence. If he views beatings as ordinary, the reader cannot fathom what he would consider extraordinary. The animosity inside of him is exposed, and the implied insanity is taking root.
After the murder of the first cat and the encounter with the second, Poe repeatedly employs the word “dread” to describe the narrator’s feelings towards the new creature. The narrator describes his terror as “not exactly a dread of physical evil” (Poe 4) while also declaring how he “loathed and dreaded” (4) the new animal. “Dread” is a specific word, categorizing immense fear. In a sense, his immense fear paralyzes him from thinking of other ways to describe his emotions. His limited vocabulary, as described by Richard Fletcher, was used to “create Gothic atmosphere” (Fletcher 2), which is evident by the grotesqueness of the piece. But it does not only do this; it emphasizes how fearsome the narrator is. Fear leads to anger and anger leads to hate. Poe’s repetition of dread hints at the great fear that eventually converts into great rancor – hatred that will lead to his downfall.
With a final heinous act and absurd amounts of confidence, the narrator’s downfall is evident. His wife is dead and hidden, the cat is nowhere to be found, and the carcass is cleverly hidden. It appears that the narrator is free. However, as in many stories, it is arrogance that kills the cat. He “breathed as a freeman” (Poe 6) and was confident in his “excellently well constructed house” (6), foreshadowing the forgone conclusion of the story: his arrest. Much like Odysseus believing himself to be greater than the gods or Anakin Skywalker believing himself to be the most powerful Jedi, he could not escape his rightful punishment. Both of these characters fell from great heights of power. And in the ecstasy of his supposed victory, the narrator believes he is sitting on an untouchable pedestal of success. However, with a tap on his “excellently well constructed walls” that he put so much faith in, his secret was revealed by the cat hidden within. His plunge into the depths of insanity was complete, all foreshadowed throughout the story. The animal-loving man was replaced by a deranged demon.
Another crucial technique Poe wields skillfully is his proficient use of ghastly imagery.

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

monster.
The next scene embodies phase two of the path towards complete corruption. Should people make a terrible mistake, while also refusing to repent or avenge themselves for their villainy, the hatred inside will continue to escalate. The narrator, “in cold blood, … slipped a noose about its neck and hung it from the limb of a tree.” (2). This is a short sentence, but the reader can feel the terror oozing from the lines. In cold blood indicates the qualities of an assassin or a terrorist, something the reader hopefully does not aspire to be. “Slipped” is present to indicate the stealth of his work. He is ashamed at what he has become, yet he hides it from himself and from those around him. In his confusion and drunken simplemindedness the follows him even while he is sober, he cannot think of any way to attest for his deeds except through slaughter. This only leads to more trauma for the reader, as he begins to hallucinate and fall under the influence of superstition in his guilt. Shmoop University argues that the narrator’s imagination “won’t let him rest” (Shmoop 1). After his house burned down, he begins to “see” “signs” of the cat rising to haunt him. These are incorporated to fully develop the narrator’s insanity – the obviously false images that he believes to see are the result of the accumulation of malice and guilt inside him that he continues to repress. He never realizes or accepts the evil he has become.
Poe is a brutal writer. With “a rage more than demonical,” the narrator “buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead without a groan” (5). The narrator’s descent into madness is complete with this final scene. For such a grotesque thing to have done, the narrator sums up the entirety of his bloodshed in a few lines. As noted by Bryan Aubrey, the narrator “relates in a flat, matter-of-fact tone” the events that occurred while not expressing any of the remorse he revealed after gouging out Pluto’s eye (Aubrey 1). Accustomed now to the violence and the death that have embraced him wholeheartedly, he views the homicide as a leaf on a tree. Nothing could bother him. When he “buried” the axe into her head, it represents how he went overboard. A slight cut would have killed her, but the jams the axe into her skull out of satisfaction that the brutality brings him. As opposed to the earlier seen where his anger was described as demonical, he has surpassed that point and has become more than demonical. Demons are the manifestation of the worst of society’s qualities. Demons of fury and rage are the worst of those traits, so to be beyond a demon is incomprehensible. It represents the peak of separation from a human into a savage. And all of these events started with just a few too many drinks in a bar. Poe wants to teach the reader how any man can fall. It is up to the reader to choose if he or she heeds the warning.
The message of how one corrupted by resentment – who refuses to seek aid – is doomed to insanity is presented through savage imagery and grim diction. An ordinary worker metamorphosizes into a stoic slaughterer as the wrath in him was released. Poe’s stories illustrate the full depth of the freed bat, demonstrating the full extent to which it reacts when free.