Edgar Allan Poe wrote many satires, though he’s best known for his mystery and macabre. Poe faced many difficulties during his lifetime, his biological father left him at an early age, his adoptive father never truly loved him, and his wife, brother, and mother all died from the same disease. It seems as though he took his pain out in his writing, he wrote many famous short stories such as The Raven, The Black Cat, and The Tell-Tale Heart. Poe use suspense, fear, and surprise as elements of horror. Firstly he uses suspense to get the audience’s attention.Suspense is the tension of not knowing what’s going to happen next and Poe beautifully captures the meaning of suspense in his opening paragraph. In The Black Cat, he starts the book off by telling what is going to happen without actually mentioning the plot. “...these events …show more content…
have terrified--have tortured--have destroyed me” (Poe 1), he lets the readers know that something bad is going to happen to him but he doesn’t fully explain what is which draws the attention of the reader making them wonder what is going to happen to the main character in the story. Next, he uses fear to create the effect of horror.
“The fury of a demon instantly possessed me” (Poe 2). The character started drinking shortly after his marriage and after adopting all of his animals. His drinking was so bad that he started harming any of the animals and even his wife if they crossed his path when he was spirited. His favorite animal Pluto felt the worst pain out of the rest of the animals. The character came home one night drunk, Pluto bit him and felt the wrath that was being carried with the drunken man. “I...grasped the poor east by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!” (Poe 2). He hurt his favorite animal which truly shows how terrifying he is when he’s drunk. Later he chooses to hang the cat because he can no longer stand being around the cat. He runs into another cat that resembles Pluto and chooses to bring the beast home, but he doesn’t like the cat because he’s actually scared of it. The cat resembled Pluto with a missing eye which bothered the man. The cat left the man mad which drove him to try and kill the cat with an axe. But instead he “...buried the axe in her brain” (Poe
4). Lastly, he uses surprise. It was all too suprising how he would mistreat his favorite pet, and how he would murder his beloved wife. Then After he stuffs his wife’s dead corpse in the basement wall, four days later the police start searching for the wife. The last element of surprise would be that “...loud, and continuous scream...inhuman...a wailing shriek…”(Poe 5). The cat whom he thought was gone was actually inside of the wall that he buried his wife in. The cats shriek led to the police finding the body and the man was taken to jail. In conclusion there are many elements of horror but there were three that Poe used best when writing the black cat. Suspense can catch the reader off guard, fear creates the horror effect, and surprise shocks the audience. Poe used all three of these elements of horror to craft the Black Cat.
Edgar Allen Poe is the author of many great pieces of literature. He uses his narrators to explain situations that are going on in their life. The narrators of "The Cask of Amontillado" and "The Black Cat" demonstrate their love for mans inhumanity to man and animals through horrific murders.
Poe was a very experienced author of unique tales. He was born on January 19, 1809 and died on October 7, 1849. He had a dark life growing up because his mother, foster mother, and his wife died from tuberculous. His father abandoned him and his foster father disliked him. This background may have greatly influenced his work. He wrote 70 poems and 66 short stories during his lifetime. Poe has written many Gothic horror stories. “The Tell Tale Heart,” “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher” show these similarities.
Introduction Poe was famous for his works of mystery and dark poetry. He was not the most distinguished writer in American history, but he was the most versatile and well worth reading. He had an imagination that carried him away to an almost morbid dreamland, some say his gothic style of writing came from his own life, in which he suffered from depression.
“The Black Cat” is a short story about a man is dealing with alcohol problems, which cause him to lose his temper more frequently. One of the first cases of the man’s lashing out happens towards the beginning of the story. The man returns home, very intoxicated, and proceeds to cut one of the cat’s eyeballs out. Poe states “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!” The use of deep description by Poe in this instance allows the reader to fully imagine the actions done by the man to the cat. He gives many small details like “grasped the poor beast by the throat,” to really readers to see what he wants them to. Additionally, as the story moves forward, the man is not done with the cat. He then proceeds to murder the cat he has already cut an eye out of. Poe explains “One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree.” Poe paints a striking picture for the reader to see, and to feel the full impact of the action taken in the story.
Substance abuse plays a role in more than one of Poe's works. In the black cat alcohol drives the narrator to rip out his cats eye with with a pen and then hang the cat in guilt of what he had done. The narrator was a kind hearted man who loved animals and would do nothing to hurt them until he started to drink. He became an angrier person, always getting enraged with the people and creatures around him and his personality changed for the worse. Substance abuse changed him and drove him to be a different person than he really was. After killing the cat he felt little to no remorse for the deed he had committed and went back to his drinking and partying.Eventually his drinking led him to kill his wife, substance abuse changed him into a cold hearted man who could rationalize killing his wife and getting away with it.
Introduced by tragedies early in his life, Edgar Allan Poe became one of the most successful writers, poets, and storytellers to ever live. Edgar Allan Poe had the intelligence to do anything he wanted to do, however, the pain of losing his loved ones always seemed to drive him towards a pen and paper. His emotions never failed to show through his writings, which helped the story line touch the readers. Poe became very close to several different women but each would die shortly after he came to love them. This only pushed him to write more emotionally. Poe had a natural talent for putting his real life experiences into a fictional story and making it seem as if it were really happening.
Analysis of the Role First Person Narration Plays in Edgar Allen Poe's Poem The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe was a poet mainly known for his dark gothic genre, and his favorite topic of a beautiful woman whose life has ended. He was depressed during his life and even tried to commit suicide, but was unsuccessful. His dark poems on love and death are very enjoyable to read. He knows how to perfectly combine both themes beautifully. Edgar Allan Poe was a great poet and writer. He masterfully invented mystery poems and used lost love as popular theme to captivate his readers. Edgar Allan Poe was a notable American poet. He was not a hero or an idol, but he challenged the very morality of life, and the utter void moments in life.
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.
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.
Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most influential writers of the horror genre in American history. His horror stories have impacted numerous authors and their stories over the years. Various people have tried to copy his way of writing style, but they have failed to achieve the success he did. Even though Poe is no longer living, his impact on American literature can still be felt today.
Edgar Allen Poe is known for his dark theme poems and short stories. When one does read one of Poe 's works the reader gets a glimpse of Poe 's reality. His uses of metaphors and dark themes have made him very popular. He writing style has Gothic themes as well as suspense and horror themes as well. His use of very dark metaphors cast a dark and gloomy presence that shows the reader the mind and world of the narrator telling the story. Edgar Allen Poe 's use of dark themes in “Black Cat” helped him convey the very dark nature of his works in which helped him shape the reality of the stories.
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...
The narrator of the story plays an integral part in the reader’s level of understanding. The main character shows his madness, as well as the unfolding of the plot of the story. Poe’s use of the first person to help connect the reader to the narrator of the story.
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. ...