Edgar Allan Poe had an insatiable passion for mystery, suspense, murder, horror, and the gothic in general, which is very evident in the majority of his writings. Born Edgar Poe in 1809, Poe was to become a literary master of the early nineteenth century. Poe’s parents were travelling actors who seperated before his first birthday. Elizabeth, his mother, took custody of him, but she shortly died before Poe’s third birthday. Poe was informally adopted by John and Frances Allan, who christened him with the name he is known by today, Edgar Allan Poe.

For reasons that are unknown, when Poe reached early adulthood, his stepfather grew to dislike and despise him greatly to the point he voided Poe out of his life’s will entirely. Poe joined the Army in 1827, and soon after his honorable discharge, Poe began terrible bouts with alcoholism that cost him a lot of writing positions. One oddity that is rarely brought up or spoken of about Poe’s life is his seven year marriage to his thirteen year old first cousin, Virginia (or “Sissy” as she was known). Sissy died of tuberculosis in 1847 and her death almost devastated Poe’s writing career

“The Black Cat” is a story, exceedingly well told, illustrative of a theory, which the author has advanced in other writings, respecting perverseness, or the impulse to perform actions simply for the reason that they ought no be performed. For this devilish spirit, Mr. Poe claims the honor of being one of the primitive impulses of the human heart”(Colton 2 Feb. 2001). In relation to “The Black Cat,” I interpret Mr. Colton’s views as praising Poe’s writing style in which his characters act out of wit and kill and thus, that also leads me to believe that Colton missed Poe’s moral message too.

“The Black Cat,” in context of horror and mystery, was very well written. Poe’s story also leads me to believe whether Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary” is a spin off of this very tale. Anybody who is familiar with both King’s “Pet Sematary” and Poe’s “The Black Cat,” will be able to make the great similarities in both tales, in which both cats in each tale return to wreak mortal ven-

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