Theme Of Perverseness In The Black Cat

1118 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Edgar allan poe black cat literary analysis

In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” the main character, other than the two cats highly featured in Poe’s story, is the unidentified narrator. The story is told in retrospective style by the narrator, according to the grapevine a man of means given his reference in the story to a servant who lives with him and his wife, and who the reader is led to believe is incarcerated and soon to be put to death for a crime to be expressed. The narrator in “The Black Cat” begins his story with a rejection of belief that is something but sane, stating “Yet, mad am I not – and very surely do not dream. But to-morrow I die and to-day I would unburden my soul.” Having learned the reader of his need to relieve his soul regarding the sequence of …show more content…

The discussion of perverseness is in the paragraph describing the murder of Pluto. The narrator asks “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? Have we not a perpetual inclination […] to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such?” The narrator suggests that this perverseness as an essential part of human nature. It’s what makes people break the law, just for the fun of breaking the law, even if they know they’ll get in trouble, even if they think the law is just. This, the narrator says, is why he killed Pluto. And if he hadn’t killed Pluto, the second cat wouldn’t have come to haunt him and force him to kill his wife. The narrator seems to be saying that he does know the difference between right and wrong, but that this perverse impulse “one of the primitive of the human heart” made him do it anyway. This could throw a wrench in the insanity defense, which depends on him being able to show that he doesn’t know the difference between right and

Show More
Related

  • Irony In Poe's The Masque Of The Red Death

    372 Words  | 1 Pages

    In “An Edgar Allan Poe Reader” several stories and poems are revealed but only a few will be considered. In the stories “The Black Cat” Poe writes irony in the story. This certain story is a first person narrative. The narrator shifts from a happy, animal loving, married man. One night the narrator gets drunk and believes that Pluto is not listening to him. So he takes the cat eyes out and hangs the cat. After the cat hanging he decides to kill the cat with an axe. But his wife would not allow it so he buried the axe in the brain. Poe says, “I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain”, (245).

    Read More

  • Imagery In The Cask Of Amontillado By Edgar Allan Poe

    963 Words  | 2 Pages

    “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.

    Read More

  • Figurative Language In The Black Cat

    1772 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Theme Of The Black Cat And The Cask Of Amontillado

    1029 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “The Cask of Amontillado” it is safe to assume that Montresor suffers no repercussions for his entrapment of Fortunato. Perhaps he experiences a fleeting sense of guilt that he expresses through his retelling of his quest for revenge, but there is not much else within the story that would suggest Montresor experienced any other form of punishment. In “The Black Cat” however, the reader is immediately made aware that the narrator is suffering for his crimes. The narrator plainly states that he is on death’s row and that the actions that he engaged in have caused him great suffering. If the actions of Montresor and our anonymous narrator of “The Black Cat” had been committed today, would they be excused on the grounds of insanity? There is little evidence to suggest that Montresor was not mentally stable. Of course, to be able to partake in such an extreme act of vengeance one must be disturbed in some way or another. But without proper causation, there would likely be no excuse. As for the narrator of “The Black Cat”, the insanity defense might be used to some extent to explain his actions and motives for his violent crimes. The narrator was affected by alcoholism early in the story and was not in his right mind. He stated that he tried to resist the urges of violence within himself, but ultimately could not. Because of the narrator’s conflicting emotions and the heavy

    Read More

  • Perversity In Poe And Alcoholism

    1513 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The Role First Person Narration in Edgar Allen Poe's Poem The Black Cat

    583 Words  | 2 Pages

    Analysis of the Role First Person Narration Plays in Edgar Allen Poe's Poem The Black Cat

    Read More

  • A Comparison of The Purloined Letter and The Black Cat

    1121 Words  | 3 Pages

    which looks similar to his old cat but has a spooky factor to it. The

    Read More

  • Symbolism in Poe’s Works

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    Poe, Edgar A. “The Black Cat.” Literature: Reading Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and the Essay. Ed.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poe and the American Mind

    1861 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Dark Themes In Edgar Allen Poe's 'Black Cat'

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    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,

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”

    862 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • The Black Cat Analysis

    1101 Words  | 3 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • The Black Cat

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narcissism of the narrator contributes to the overall darkness of the story and is largely conclusive to the dark and the underlying malevolence of Poe’s own conscience. The cat in “The...

    Read More

  • Critical Interpretations of Poe's The Black Cat

    999 Words  | 2 Pages

    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. ...

    Read More

More about Theme Of Perverseness In The Black Cat

Open Document