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Edgar Allan Poe and the Black Cat

            Edgar Allan Poe victoriously achieved the goal of creating the image of complete and utter insanity in his dark, twisted tale "The Black Cat. " Poe's first person narrative quickly establishes ambiguity about the story and the preceding events the narrator described. The narrator is the main character in this story, he is the center, the focus. We do not learn about him firsthand, rather, we learn about him by what he has penned to us. We receive the details that happened from a nostalgic flashback that he has written on paper before his death. He experiences a deterioration from normality to delirium. Throughout this narrative, the narrator's character changes in attribute due to his vulnerability to alcohol which drives his perverseness, his behavior towards his animals, and his masked guilt from murdering his wife. .
             Hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, constitute the chief furniture of his apartment which is presented to shine light on his alcoholism and is the direct causation to why he cannot rid himself of his perverse desires. "The spirit of Perverseness (521). " This spirit is the utmost captivating affair of the story, it is what enables these written accounts to happen in the first place. The narrator contemplates this perverse feeling as one of "the primitive impulses of the human heart - one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man to violate that which is Law (521) ." The narrator also affirms the "unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself (521)."His "disease (520) "compels him to .
             lynch his cat, Pluto, from the nearby tree and he does so as there are "tears streaming from [his] eyes and with the bitterest remorse at [his] heart(521) " Pluto has not been disorienting nor has he misbehaved in any manner; however, the narrator still cannot hinder his strong desire to commit such immoral action. His brash and perverse impulse has far exceeded the dominion of behaviorism and entered the empire of possession of this dark spirit of perverseness, of the metaphysical, when in actuality it is his alcohol, his disease is that what is pushing him over the edge.


Essays Related to Edgar Allan Poe and the Black Cat

1. The Black Cat

... writers up into the new millennium. Works Cited Colton, George. "Poe's Tales." The American Review. Vol. II, No. III, 1845. Reprinted in Nineteenth- Century Literature Criticism, Vol. 16. 20 Feb. 2001 Poe, Edgar Allan. "The Black Cat." Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2001. 545-50. Roberts, Edgar V. and Henry E. Jacobs. "A Career in Fiction: A Collection of Stories by Edgar Allan Poe." Literature: An ... Introduction to Reading and Writing. Ed. Edgar V. Roberts and Henry E. Jacobs...

  • Word Count: 939
  • Approx Pages: 4
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

2. Edgar Allan Poe and The Black Cat

"The Black Cat," written by Edgar Allan Poe, is a unique story about a man and his relationship with a cat. In the story Edgar Allen Poe is explaining his problematic situation that he finds himself in when he falls madly in love with his cat however soon becomes enraged with hatred towards the animal that leads him to even kill the animal. Throughout the story the reader gets the feeling of a gray strange feeling as they read more and more through ... when Edgar Allan Poe first attacks Pluto, the original black cat, it describes the situation not only with quotes that directly tell what is g...

  • Word Count: 849
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3. Characters in the Works of Edgar Allan Poe

... focus on some of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories to analyze the perfect combination of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories and his characters. The protagonists of Edgar Allan Poe's short stories are the main attractions for the readers. Characters always play an important role to understand the story, mainly the protagonists whose actions mainly formulate the story. All writers do not have the power to communicate to the readers through their characters. However, E. A. Poe has this power and this power makes ... , respectively, the conscience, and the unconscious " (Barry 97). We all possess...

  • Word Count: 2343
  • Approx Pages: 9
  • Has Bibliography
  • Grade Level: High School

4. Edgar Allen Poe

... some of his famous poems. This is proven by two short stories "Tell Tale Heart" and "The Black Cat." Edgar Allan Poe was a famous American writer born in Massachusetts in 1809. He was an orphan raised by his older brother John Allan. In 1827 Poe started working because he owed money from gambling and drinking. Edgar Allan Poe didn't like working so he quit his job as a clerk. He went back to Boston ... the cat touches him he tries to kill it with an ax. His wife tries to stop him but she winds up getting killed with the ax. He puts his wife in a basement. He confesses to the police what...

  • Word Count: 421
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5. Edgar Allan Poe's Perversion

... and mutilates the "brute." (p.11) By the end of the story, he killed his wife in an attempt to kill the cat. Afterwards, the narrator does not even feel remorse for the wrongful death of his wife. Instead, he is just happy that the cat disappeared. This is just another instance in which the reader wonders what is the driving force behind the narrator's insanity. Even though there are many more elements to Edgar Allan Poe ... , sorcery, and the spirits of the dead. Appropriately, the narrator calls his cat, Pluto, a name that alludes to the Greek and Roman mythology, where Pluto was the g...

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6. Edgar Allan Poe - Analysis of the Tell Tale Heart and Black

... Edgar Allan Poe's short classic "The Tell-Tale Heart", Poe tells a macabre tale of a murder gone wrong. The author once again demonstrates a deadly murder, exactly as he did in "The Black Cat". Poe's mind is known to be "twisted" and he certainly showed the extent of this statement. Poe sets the scene by having the narrator begin by insisting that he is not truly mad but rather "very, very dreadfully nervous" and ... go pale. It is quite evident that Edgar Allan Poe has done his best to describe "the after-life" in a fictional way. The two stories, especially "The Tell Tale Heart", clearl...

  • Word Count: 683
  • Approx Pages: 3
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7. The black cat and the cask of amontillado by edgar allan poe

"The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe are very appealing short stories which both deal with the theme of death. This theme is conveyed by techniques such as characterisation and word choice. The "Black Cat" is about a psychotic animal lover who acquires and befriends a stray black cat until a moment of madness occurs where he cuts out its eye and hangs it. Later, the man finds another cat like the one he killed and decides to keep it ... bravely when Fortunato told his jokes but now he is the one smiling as he plans to kill the jester. This shows how evil Montresor ...

  • Word Count: 750
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8. Edgar Allan Poe

... , The Balloon Hoax, Berenice, The Black Cat, The Cask of Amontillado, Diddling Considered as One of the Exact Sciences, The Domain of Arnheim, The Duc De L'Omlette, Eleonora, The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar, The Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, Hans Phaall, Hop-Frog or the Eight Chained Ourang-Outangs, The Imp of the Perverse, The Island of the Fay, King Pest, Ligeia, Lionizing, Loss of Breath, Maelzel's Chess Player, The Man of the Crowd, The Masque of the Red ... place in a locked room. In December of 1839, Edgar Allan Poe released The Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, a ...

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9. Poe and the Motif of Madness

... expand the atmosphere of inexplicability. The motif of madness is in some Poe's stories used as a driving force which leads the protagonist to commit a frightful act. In "Berenice" Egaeus' madness is the stimulus why he violates the grave of his lover and rips her teeth while she is still alive. The narrator of the story, "The Black Cat," would not gouge out the cat's eye and then ... hang it from a tree as well as he would not kill his wife if he were sane. A derangement of the protagonist of "The Cask of Amontillado" ... such stories on demand. And since the motif of madness has alway...

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10. Edgar Allan Poe

... "big gray eyes."" On January 7, 1812, Poe was baptized by the reverend John Buchanan and christened Edgar Allan Poe. {Bloom's Critiques-pages 7-10} When Edgar was five, he began his formal education in a "dame school- run by Clotilda and Elizabeth Fisher. The next year, he moved on to the school of Mr. William Ewgin. In 1815, John Allan's business took him to England; and his wife and Edgar went along. {Encyclopedia Americana-page 274 ... .allpoe.com/bio} In 1843 as well, Poe began a series of murder stories told from the narrative perspective of the fictional murderers. These would even...

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