Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat

1312 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Thesis statements of the story the black cat

Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" is a story of how an arguably demonic, manipulating black cat ruins the life of its master. After being maimed and murdered by its once loving owner, the cat is reincarnated and finds its way back to its murderer to seek revenge. The story, however, does not focus so much on the actions of the cat, but rather the actions of its unfortunate master. The story is narrated from the point of view of a condemned, remorseful man who recalls the violent actions that placed him in his current doomed state. When we first meet the narrator, we find that he held an undying affection for animals in his youth and early adulthood. He slowly changes, however, for the worse, into a man capable of the most hideous of crimes. He, in remembering the atrocities, feels a sorrowful, and truthful regret for his past actions and feelings, or lack thereof. The narrator, however, did not always feel this sense of regret and remorse. In "The Black Cat," the narrator gradually morphs from a mild, affectionate person in his youth and beginning adulthood, to a monstrous man who is capable of committing and covering up murder. The change of the narrator can be seen in three phases: his childhood love and need for affection from animals, his drunken violence toward his wife and pets, and in his neglect for all human virtue in the murder of his wife and attempt to hide his wrongs. ...

... middle of paper ...

...without the least bit of regret.

The change of the narrator from a mild, humanity conscious being, to an unregretful, monstrous murderer can easily be seen throughout the entire story. In the end, he is exposed and ultimately condemned by the black cat after the "rapping" brought forth a scream from the beast. After being sentenced to death and awaiting his execution, the narrator seems to recover his old, remorseful self. Now, however, it is too late to save him from the chastisements he has brought upon himself. He is doomed to die for the lack of the very thing that once comprised his entire being: a lack of love.

Show More
Related

  • 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

  • Poe’s The Black Cat and Hawthorn’s Young Goodman Brown

    671 Words  | 2 Pages

    In "Young Goodman Brown," Hawthorne analyzes the Puritans’ consciousness and the hidden wickedness of their nature. He takes a naïve Puritan man and takes him on a journey into the dark forest to meet an old man whom we presume, is the devil. As the naïve Puritan embarks on his journey, his wife "Faith" kisses him good bye. The Puritan has an overwhelming feeling of guilt as he is entering the forest to meet with the Devil. He realized what he is doing was forbidden and none of his forefathers or fellow Puritans would ever commit such a sin. During his meeting with the Devil his naïveté dissolves. He sees Deacon Gookin, his old catechism teacher, and other upstanding members of the community, whom he looked up to and feared, dancing around the Devil’s fire. He is told that the Devil has helped his father and Grandfather in years past. His innocence is completely destroyed when he sees his own wife Faith dancing around the Devils circle . He screams in agony: "My faith is gone. There is no good on earth; and sin is but a ...

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat: Substance Abuse

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe

    532 Words  | 2 Pages

    During the American literary movement known as Transcendentalism, many Americans began to looking deeper into positive side of religion and philosophy in their writing. However, one group of people, known as the Dark Romantics, strayed away from the positive beliefs of Transcendentalism and emphasized their writings on guilt and sin. The most well-known of these writers is Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was a dark romantic writer during this era, renown for his short stories and poems concerning misery and macabre. His most famous poem is “The Raven”, which follows a man who is grieving over his lost love, Lenore. In this poem, through the usage of tonal shift and progression of the narrator’s state of mind, Poe explores the idea that those who grieve will fall.

    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’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

  • Internal Criticism In Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat

    923 Words  | 2 Pages

    “The scariest monsters are the ones that lurk within our souls,”- Edgar Allan Poe. The romantic author’s idea of human nature being corrupted by instinctive weakness is reflected in his short story, “The Black Cat”. Throughout the story, the narrator relates internal monologue and conflicting feelings towards his family’s two cats, with his inner demon eventually taking control and forcing him to kill his cats and wife. Poe uses the symbol of black cats to represent the conflicting inner turmoil of a person’s deepest desires and how people are willing to pin blame on anything but their own malevolence.

    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

  • 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

  • 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, by Edgar Allan Poe

    935 Words  | 2 Pages

    What happens if our home is no longer safe? What if the people we love are no longer trustworthy and become violent? How do we escape such madness when every exit in the home seems walled up? Edgar Allen Poe taps into some of our deepest fears, using the genre of horror. In his short story, “The Black Cat”, Poe addresses the very real and scary consequences of addiction, mental illness and domestic abuse. The horrific effect that these have on the family slowly unfold as Poe unravels the mind of the protagonist. While the narrator, in this case the protagonist, slowly slips into insanity with the aid of his drink, his wife silently transforms in the background, from a passive victim of abuse, to a defender of the helpless and weak.

    Read More

  • The Insane Effects of Alcohol Abuse in Edgar Allan Poe´s The Black Cat

    1276 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    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

  • Disguised Motives for Murder in Short Stories by Edgar Allen Poe

    1419 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout both stories Poe shows that both narrators in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell Tale Hart” long for violence. He does not give clear motives for their crime; instead he leaves the detective work to the readers. After careful analysis of both stories, the reader understands that the narrators’ psychotic perceptions of reality, their domestic lifestyles, and their craving for violence, is the only reason these men commit such heinous acts without reason. The horrific crimes illustrated in these two stories along with his dynamic writing style is what has lead Poe to be one of the most recognizable authors of the 19th century.

    Read More

More about Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat

Open Document