What Does The Fire Symbolize In The Black Cat

1011 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Symbolism intro essay

There’s an old wise tell that if a black cat crosses the street in front of you go other direction or pull your ear because there’s bad luck coming. In the story The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, the narrator should have held his ear or turned the other direction when coming into contact with the black cat. The story took a wicked twist when the narrator’s addiction made him do the unthinkable, and his life was changed for the worst. The Black Cat had many symbols that were used in it and which can interpret different understandings of the story being told. The black cat also known as Pluto can be symbolized to be an omen of his addiction occurring to happen. The fire after the killing of Pluto can be symbolized as him going to burning in hell …show more content…

After the assassination of Pluto, the narrator woke up to a fire in his bedroom. After killing Pluto, the narrator said, “I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin – a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul…” (205). The fire symbolizes the narrator knowing that he is going to go to hell for committing such a sin. Also the fire can symbolize the alcohol is burning through his throat and the pain it causes him and how it attacks his soul. Seeing the fire is the narrator acknowledging that he will have to pay for his actions, and his existence will no longer be. The fire makes him want repent for his sins and change before it is too …show more content…

The narrator in a way leads the police where to find the body in the wall. By the narrator doing so it symbolizes himself seeking help for his addiction and he can no longer go back by admitting what he had done. The first step to seeking help with an addiction is admitting that you have an addiction. The narrator ends the short story by saying “I had walled the monster up within the tomb” (209). This quote can be interrupted as him admitting his addiction can finally be conquered and now he can seek

Show More
Related

  • Courage For His Father In Cormac Mccarthy's The Road

    809 Words  | 2 Pages

    The imagery of fire continues in the story; the building of their fires, how the man molds the fires, and how they stoke the fire. When the boy gets sick the father is referred to many times of how he builds and rekindles the fire. This actual fire is a symbol for the fire that the man and the boy discuss carrying within in them. The man fights to save his son and the fire within the boy

    Read More

  • 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

  • The Symbolism Of Black Humor In Cat's Crad

    3853 Words  | 8 Pages

    Black Humor in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle       The phrase Black Humor has the broad meaning of poking "fun at subjects considered deadly serious or even taboo by some"2. This definition is simple, and yet embodies an important idea that is often lost in more complex definitions: the idea that Black Humor can actually be "fun", and provoke laughter. This is not, of course, the only important aspect of the term, and I shall explore some of the other important defining features of Black Humor before moving on to discuss its use in Kurt Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle3. Many critics have attempted definitions of Black Humor, none of them entirely successfully. The most significant recurring features of these definitions are that Black Humor works with: absurdity, ironic detachment4; opposing moral views held in equipoise, humanity's lack of a sense of purpose in the unpredictable nuclear age, the realization of the complexity of moral and aesthetic experience which affects the individual's ability to choose a course of action5; and a playing with the reader's ideas of reality6.

    Read More

  • Symbols In The Lottery By Shirley Jackson

    1077 Words  | 3 Pages

    Symbolism can also be represented by weather and colors such how it is done in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Katherine Anne Porter. Throughout the story, Porter uses weather such as fog to represent hell and uses bright colors such as blue to represent what is good such as Heaven. The bad weather that Granny fearfully visions throughout the story symbolizes not only her death to come, but her fear of going to

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Devices In Lord Of The Flies Research Paper

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    So, in the beginning of the story, the fire symbolized civilization and hope. However, this was changed when Jack confiscated the fire from Ralph's tribe and used it to help them do more wrongdoings. He set the jungle into fire so that Ralph can burn out. This changed the symbolism of the fire from civilization and hope to evil, savagery, and calamity. However, soon something ironic happened.

    Read More

  • Pluto Had to Die

    913 Words  | 2 Pages

    Overwhelmingly, truth was lost within this unreliable narrator’s world. It is a repeated theme throughout many of Poe’s works that a guilty conscious is one of the most detrimental things a person can possess. Often times, within his stories, the main character dies due to his or her guilty conscious and “The Black Cat” is no different. The narrator’s warped sense of reality was ultimately the reason for his demise. Poe seems to be warning readers, through his numerous works, that it may or may not be a good thing to have a guilt conscious.

    Read More

  • Connotation In Sinners

    423 Words  | 1 Pages

    The author used “firey pit” to put the image of burning inside of unconverted sinners head when

    Read More

  • Similarities Between The Tell Tale Heart And The Black Cat

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Symbolism in Poe’s Works

    1174 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many authors often use symbolism to express a deeper meaning. They use the symbols to connect an unrelated thought or feeling into their literary work they are writing. Edgar Allan Poe frequently uses this literary device in his works. Symbols are many times seen in his poems and in his short stories. Many symbols are evident in Poe’s works “The Raven,” “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Black Cat.” Because Poe’s works are typically dark, his use of symbols is in a dark way. Although there are many types of symbols manifested in these stories, Poe’s works generally include a symbol that eludes death or the end of something and many include references of sight and vision.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat

    668 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Playing with Fire: Life Altering Decisions in Faulkner's "Barn Burning,"

    766 Words  | 2 Pages

    The fire first helps him identify with his father, then realize the existence of a choice between blood and justice, and finally make a decision about which he prefers.

    Read More

  • Meaning of Fire in "Fahrenheit 451"

    774 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion, Fire has 3 different meanings which lead you to new thinking and insight towards the world. Fire represents change which is shown through Montag’s symbolic change from using fire to burn knowledge into using fire to help him find knowledge; fire can represent knowledge as demonstrated through Faber, and fire can represent rebirth of knowledge as demonstrated through the phoenix. Overall fires representation is not one of destruction but one of knowledge, thinking, new insight, and acknowledgment.

    Read More

  • Symbolism, And Imagery In The Lottery, By Shirley Jackson

    723 Words  | 2 Pages

    Symbolism is found in many place within the story. Shirley Jackson uses symbolism to communicate through picture with the readers. In the story there is a black wooden box that is well known to the villagers. In the black box there were two slips of paper one was white and the other was black. The box is a connection to their tradition in the village. “ Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general

    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

  • 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 What Does The Fire Symbolize In The Black Cat

Open Document