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The black cat edgar allen poe symbolisms
The black cat edgar allen poe symbolisms
The black cat edgar allen poe symbolisms
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In Edgar Allen Poe's short story, The Black Cat, there is a lot of symbolism regarding hidden attributes of his life. The black cat itself represents not only a hidden meaning but a meaning the narrator wished to keep hidden. The black cat symbolizes the narrator's or Poe's alcoholism. Edgar Allen Poe has been accused of being an alcoholic throughout his life and it may have actually lead up to the cause of his death. The short story may give a subtle view at Poe's fight with the disease and the disease's eventual triumph. The black cat may not only be a symbol of the alcoholism that Poe faces but perhaps just his conscious in general regarding most anything deviant. The black cat, Pluto, is at first the narrator's friend. He takes a liking to it over the other pets he has; including other cats, dogs, fish, birds, mostly any other domestic creature. Pluto is his friend because it is loyal and understands the meaning of friendship over most humans. Pluto symbolizes alcohol. It is there for him when he needs it, stays loyal to him, and is his favorite of all other domestic activities. Pluto, in the beginning, may also represent the narrator's conscious as being sane, untarnished, and completely normal. The story then moves on and out of a drunken rage, he thinks that Pluto is avoiding him and tarnishing their loyal friendship so he gouges out the cat's eye. This reflects Poe's bitterness toward alcohol after he has had so much. It is a crazy plot twist and may just be present in the story to shed light on how crazy the narrator is. It can't be easily explained. However, it may also be his conscious getting to him about his drinking and he lashes out at the habit. Progressing, the story continues with this ... ... middle of paper ... ...nd the policeman takes a cane and dismantles it, finding the corpse of the narrator's dead wife and the cat sitting upon her head, concluding the story. The conscience of the man that Poe creates is very interesting. The cat was his conscious all along, hiding in the wall with his wife which was in his mind the entire time, never letting go. Although sometimes the black cats in the story better represent alcoholism than conscience and vice versa, it may be safe to say that they are meant to be interpreted that way. Alcoholism was his conscious and being delirious and insane was his way of thinking. One needed the other to make the man operate the way that he did. The psychoanalytical gestures that Poe presents in this short story are plentiful and it's hard to pinpoint them all, since Poe himself lived within his characters and all were a bit "psycho."
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
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
He brutally describes him stabbing the cats eye, "I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket"(p5) Pluto’s perspective of his master went from loving to fear and recognizing cruelty, experiencing both a literal and physiological change of vision. From then on Pluto sees his master differently, and sees the world differently as well in result of his now one eye. Additionally, the reader's eyes for his cat are sharpened and changed at this moment as well. The madness in the Black Cat then escalates when the narrator's hatred for Pluto consumed him, and he hangs him outside the garden.Mysteriously, when coming home drunk a few weeks after the murder of his cat, a black cat similar to Pluto appears in front of the narrator, missing an eye as well but has white fur on its stomach unlike Pluto. He brings the cat home in hope it will replace the cat he now misses and remorses for killing. Soon his liking for his cat turned to bitterness and hatred. The madness inside of him decreased with the death of Pluto, and returned with
Next, symbolism is always an integral part of any Poe story. The most obvious of symbolic references in this story is the cat’s name, Pluto. This is the Roman god of the underworld. Pluto contributes to a strong sense of hell and may even symbolize the devil himself. Another immensely symbolic part of “The Black Cat” is the title itself, since onyx cats have long connoted bad luck and misfortune. The most amazing thing about the symbolism in this story or in any other of Poe’s is that there are probably many symbols that only Poe himself ever knew were in his writings.
for dark, mysterious, and bizarre works of fiction. His works sometimes reflected his life experiences and hardships he tried to overcome. Examples of the troubles in his life include alcoholism, having his works rejected over and over, being broke, and losing his family, even his beloved wife to tuberculosis. There is no wonder why his works are so dark and evil, they were taken from his life. A theme is defined as the major or central idea of a work. Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”, contains six major themes that are discussed in this paper. They include the home, violence, drugs and alcohol, freedom and confinement, justice and judgement, and transformation.
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.
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...
He starts out by saying that he and his wife both have good hearts and both have a share of love for animals so that got pets of many different varieties. Though the narrator became quite fond of the cat more they name the cat Pluto, which is also the Roman mythological god of death and darkens. Little by little he goes in and out of madness, which some of it is alcohol induced because the narrator specifies that he would come in from his “flaunts” about town and get enraged with every pet and offered to beat his wife as well. It became really bad to where he would abuse the cat as well. One day when he picked the cat up, the cat bit him so in retaliation he gouged the cat 's eye out with a pen. The next day after he sobered up he became saddened and disgusted with his deed. The cat
Analysis of the Role First Person Narration Plays in Edgar Allen Poe's Poem The Black Cat
To begin the story Poe has a man who sets the scenery. The man sounds like he has a sound mind. But the narrator is trying to build his case for his sanity. The idea of the obsession that the narrator has with the eye of his employer builds to the question of whether or not this was a sign of a man who has an unstable mind or is it all just a ploy to get away with murder.
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).
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.
Black cats have historically represented witchcraft, bad luck, and death in many parts of the world. In “The Black Cat”, Pluto held the place of one of the narrator’s most beloved pets until the animal grows frightened. The narrator ends up cutting Pluto’s eye out causing him to become half blind, and eventually kills Pluto. Shortly after this, the narrator becomes haunted by a feline that looks similar to Pluto. The only difference between Pluto and the second cat is the second feline has a white mark on his neck. In “The Black Cat”, the feline Pluto represents the underworld, narcissism, and mental instability.
The story takes place in the home of the main character, the climactic events happening in the dark, gloomy basement. The main character, a one-time lover of animals, takes to drinking alcohol, which brings out his hidden cruel personality. He abuses his wife and animals, eventually loosing himself to his rage and committing murder. His one animal that he refused to harm in the beginning, the black cat named Pluto, eventually becomes the target of his entire wrath. As the narrator claims during a particularly cruel encounter, "I knew myself no longer," as his alcohol-induced anger caused him to become someone else, someone he did not recognize.
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. ...