Violence In The Black Cat, And The Raven

Gillian Flynn and Edgar Allen Poe apply gothic literature of psychological issues and violence throughout their gothic literature in, Sharp Objects, The Black Cat, and The Raven to illustrate a dreary storyline.

Flynn often writes about Camille’s mental and physical issues throughout Sharp Objects, the adversity she had and has are the plot of the book. Camille is a “cutter...snipper, a slicer, a jabber”(Flynn 60). She drinks to get her mind away from her thoughts of the past and the troubles of her present life. Her temptation of alcohol is easily succumbed; she surrounds herself with alcohol , because “...everyone drinks in Wind Gap” (Flynn 82). Her drinking problems may have led to seeing and imagining images that were not real.

She once “made out four little girls sitting in a row along a stumpy wall across the street… the same girls [she] ran into at the edge of the forest “ (Flynn 33). Her thoughts and self-abuse are what tore her down.

Poe’s characters are not emotionally intact; which later encourages physical misbehavior and misleading thoughts.

The main characters in both The Black Cat and The Raven consume alcohol to have their current thoughts blurred or forgotten for the time being. One night he was “...guilty; but it was, at best a feeble and equivocal feeling…again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed!” (Poe 2). The wine might have gotten to his head leading him to hear and see “... a flirt and flutter, in there stepped a stately Raven...” (Poe 2). The Raven was never there he was imagining it. His state of sorrowfulness and intoxication brought the Raven into his thoughts because of the death of his love. he “...approached and saw, as if graven with an accuracy truly marvelous. There had been a rope about the animal's neck” (Poe #). His guilt lead him to believe that what he saw was true.

Each of these stories not only has the consumption of alcohol; but also had violent actions. In the Black Cat he “... took from his waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!” (Poe 2). In Sharp Objects Camille “...had a flash of Natalie,... wielding blades at a little girl’s eye. An image of bright red mingling unexpectedly with pastel watercolors” (Flynn 127).
Theses stories all relate to how they do not handle: themselves, as well as their physical and emotional, thoughts and actions well. Their past led them to alcohol leading the to psychological issues as well as

violence.