Turning To Evil In Poe's 'The Black Cat'

1577 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Significance of symbolism in literature

“Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because we understand it to be such” (Poe 1594)? This last words are the simplification of the human tendency to be human. What it is to be human? Is it kindness, love and affection for others? Well, to be human is to be, at least in some part, evil according, in my opinion, to one great author. This talented author could effortlessly distinguish from ethical and unethical just by observing. Additionally, this author “has been called a drunk, a drug-addict, a hack, a sex pervert, and an exploiter” (May 3). Despite all, Charles May states that this author, “metaphysically mysterious stories, helped create a literature that made America …show more content…

In the short story “The Black Cat” by Poe, black cat is a symbol for the beginning of evilness or decent to irrationality. In our everyday view, cats or felines are just that cats, an animal specimen. However, in old folklore, black cats are characterized as devils, demons, and associated with witchcraft. In addition, the color black is a symbol of darkness, lack of humanity, and secrecy from the truth. Continuously in “The Black Cat,” The narrator was unaware of these last symbols related to the black cat; since he takes as a joke his wife “allusion to ancient popular notion… that all black cats as witches in disguise” (Poe 1593). To add up, the name of the cat infers darkness; Pluto is, the powerful roman god of the underworld and death, foreshadowing that the dark is close, and the narrator most likely will conclude in an unpleasant place known as hell. Furthermore in the short story “The Black Cat,” night is not just flames of darkness devouring the soul; indeed through the story, the narrator gets out of the house at “night” due to the fact that the face and sins become blurry during night time (Poe 1595). During nighttime, the narrator’s demoniac personality is almost invisible and erase from the perception of the human eye, but it is not exterminated from the existence of the book known as history. However, evil inside the narrator “grew, day by day” because of the darkness built inside his soul made him perverse (Poe 1593). According to the narrator, “Perverseness is one of the primate impulses of the human heart” (Poe 1594); indeed, evil cannot be taken away from humanity. Yet, darkness is just taking time to build up, but eventually human instinct to be evil will be unlocked and escape to

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

  • Was Edgar Allan Poe A Rebel?

    1711 Words  | 4 Pages

    Edgar Allan Poe was a 19th century American poet, author, and critic. Poe is often described as a rebel against society and art-for-art's sake supporter who experimented in making his poems without didacticism and devoid of any meaning, but he is also respected as a genius in terms of his commitment to art and his ability to experiment with various forms of expressions (Fromm 304). In my opinion, Poe was not a rebel because he remained true to himself. Although he was influenced by traditional artists, he adapted this tradition to his personal being. Although he might have been perceived as a rebel against society because of his innovative views on the world, human beings, and poetry, I believe his work remains popular and influential today

    Read More

  • Poe's Torments Revealed in His Writing

    759 Words  | 2 Pages

    One only needs to look at Edgar Allan Poe's works to see how disturbed he truly was. Poe wrote about men being buried alive, a heart that would not stop beating even after it was taken from the body, a man being tortured by a swinging blade, and a tormented man being haunted by a raven. Why would a person write about such horrors? What demons did he seek to exorcise through his writings? What made him so tormented and cynical? Maybe for Poe it was because both his mother and his bride were snatched from him by tuberculosis. Or maybe it was because the world around him was surrounded by violence and death. Or maybe Poe was just that tortured, due to his broken upbringing.

    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

  • 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

  • Theme Of Perverseness In The Black Cat

    1118 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    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

  • A Discussion of Poe's Story the Black Cat in Light of Theories of Fantastic and Uncanny

    1277 Words  | 3 Pages

    The figure of the black cat stands as a symbol of both the need for retribution, and as a means by which the supernatural element can interfere with natural order and compel the narrator to take responsibili...

    Read More

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

    1472 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edgar Allen Poe is known for his dark theme poems and short stories. When one does read one of Poe 's works the reader gets a glimpse of Poe 's reality. His uses of metaphors and dark themes have made him very popular. He writing style has Gothic themes as well as suspense and horror themes as well. His use of very dark metaphors cast a dark and gloomy presence that shows the reader the mind and world of the narrator telling the story. Edgar Allen Poe 's use of dark themes in “Black Cat” helped him convey the very dark nature of his works in which helped him shape the reality of the stories.

    Read More

  • Edgar Allan Poe

    1338 Words  | 3 Pages

    Edgar Allan Poe was a man considered by many to be the personification of Death. He is regarded as a true American Genius whose works seized and frightened the minds of millions. However, Poe greatly differed from other acclaimed authors of his time. He had a unique writing style that completely altered the reality surrounding his readers. Rather than touch their hearts with lovable fictional characters he found a way of expressing himself that no other author had at the time. Poe’s combination of demented genius and difficult past experiences led him to become one of the greatest writers of all time.

    Read More

  • The Negative Influence Of Black Cats In Today's Culture

    1452 Words  | 3 Pages

    Some early Christian civilizations believed that when a black cat crossed your path it not only brought back luck, but did so in attempt to block one’s entrance into heaven. Unfortunately for these felines, this resulted in frequent killing of black cats (Yablon 30). This was continued into the 1600s, when, “the Puritan pilgrims who helped populate Salem, Massachusetts were devout Bible believers, and the combination of a major fear of anything Devil-related and the lingering belief that black cats were a classic part of witch lifestyles was a lethal one,”

    Read More

  • Inner Evil: Edgar Allan Poe

    581 Words  | 2 Pages

    Everybody has evil and even the most amiable people have the ability to become criminals. A writer known for his dark style of writing and mysterious tales believes that all humans have the potential to do this, but the majority of them control the urge. This writer is Edgar Allan Poe, who shares his opinion of the human race through his short stories such as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “The Black Cat”. In these stories he shows how humans misuse alcohol, become perverse, and eventually summon their inner evil. Poe implies that all humans possess this evil and when summoned it will torture and soon destroy everything they have.

    Read More

  • The Black Cat

    440 Words  | 1 Pages

    Summary of The Black Cat The Black Cat, Edgar Allan Poe's short story, implicitly deals with the consequences of alcohol abuse. The narrator begins by saying that he wants to share some past events that have terrified him. These events took place years before, when he was well-known for the humanity of his heart.

    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 Turning To Evil In Poe's 'The Black Cat'

Open Document