Choices In Black Cat, By Edgar Allen Poe

The events that unfolded in Edgar Allen Poe’s, “The black Cat,” are all due to one person, the narrator. It is because of his Mental state, being an alcoholic, and being abusive to his wife and pets that the fault lies heavily on the narrator. What this paper will entail is all three of the reasons why it is the narrator's fault for what happens in the story and it will come to a conclusion based off the findings in the story.

The deaths of his parents, sister and brother, all taken by tuberculosis, lead to Edgar Allan Poe’s obsession around the subject of death. This obsession enterprises historically ingenious writings, that did not just scare the reading population by inducing a death at the climax or tying in a death to create a gasp worthy ending. Poe’s historic greatness was his ability to use death as a catalyst, not an end. His stories, specifically short stories, strengthened the idea that the end of a life, has so much more meaning, than just the end. This precision was formed by how Poe ingeniously used the knowledge to not only comprise stories involving the subject of death, but used the stories to create deep ideas of the phantom of fatality. The short stories “The Black Cat,” “The Facts in the Case of M.Valdemar,” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” all feature the inventive writing skills of Poe, that have enthralled populations since their publications.

Having choices can sometime leave a negative result that could affect others. Because of some individuals who could have caused problems for society,or because of strict individuals working for the government, choices are sometimes limited to the privileged. But it can cause problems for individuals who need the ability to make their own choices for their own sake.

“The black cat” is famous as a horror story. Horror stories are normally considered as devil and perverseness. However, Poe’s “the Black Cat” talks about humanity. Optimism is found in the tale through literary confession, the tension of fabula and plot, normality and madness, five evils, and zero description of murder.

Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” depicts a male narrator who begins to be malicious due to his ongoing consumption of alcohol which in turn, results in his ultimate demise. In summarization, the narrator commits multiple heinous crimes under the influence of alcohol and that can eventually portray his lost of sanity. Furthermore, by studying Sigmund Freud’s Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis along with Poe’s short story, we can perceive the short story on a psychoanalytical level. Therefore, through the lens of psychoanalysis, it is noticeable that the narrator uses alcohol as a vehicle to represses his emotions, however, it only causes him to be more violent which results in his murders of his beloved cats and wife.

Type the word horror into google and you will receive the following definition on Merriam Webster: an intense feeling of fear, shock, or disgust. Horror is different than fear in that it is more disturbing, disgusting, and creepy. Writers of horror stories take repulsive or unspeakable elements and turn them into a story that’s sure to make even the strongest of reader’s arm hairs stand on edge. One such writer spent a portion of his life writing these kind of stories. Edgar Allan Poe was influenced by his own life experiences, social normalities of the early 19th century, and used literary devices to write horrific works such as The Black Cat, The Raven, and Berenice.

but to say okay, and do it? When one’s freedom of choice is taken away, they are compelled to

Throughout all the short stories and poems written by Edgar Allan Poe, some connections can be made on the content, as in “The Black Cat”, and “The Raven”, are two narratives written by Poe, that unveil the themes and symbols he often uses in his work. Poe is on the mysterious side, but he is also taking the life he is given, and making his narratives raw and realist by some degree. Poe uses techniques that left him express his imagination through writing. There are many different ideas and questions arising from all his work. “The Black Cat” and “The Raven”, are two narratives that use similar themes and symbols that allow readers to receive a small connection of the madness inside of the narrators.

He doesn’t know what to do. He’s going crazy and can’t control himself. He needs help. Can anyone stop him? In “The Black Cat,” Edgar Allan Poe shows the narrator’s perverseness that takes over the character’s mind which leads him to making the wrong decisions. The main character drinks too much to the point where he cuts out one of his cat’s eye. After hanging it, another cat appears and acts like the first one which annoyed him to the point where his anger and perverseness is out of control causing him to attempt to murder his cat not only failing but killing his wife instead. Poe uses symbolism, irony, and simile to reveal that the main character’s perverseness is getting in the way of letting him make the right decisions.

Edgar Allan Poe’s narrator in “The Black Cat” describes himself as a lover of animals and a man with a kind heart. But he uses his animals and alcoholism as an excuse for his perverse behavior. However, Poe drops hints though out the narrative to tell a different story. His violence towards animals tells the story of an irrational man who weeps while hanging his cat. Therefore, Poe employs the narrator to show the human tendency to use scapegoats to shift blame for the wrong thing we do.

In the short story “The Black Cat” Edgar Allan Poe writes how the addiction of alcohol can severely affect one self’s psychological health and destroy one’s life. Poe begins the story in America, where a former animal lover turns into a psychopath since he is addicted to alcohol drinking. The first complication in the story is when the narrator starts drinking a lot and changes in character. The narrator’s drinking caused the narrator start abuse his pet animals and become violent as well as aggressive. In the second complication, the narrator attacked his black cat, Pluto, and gouged out its eye, and later hung the cat on a tree with a noose. In the climaxes of the story, the narrator’s house burned down, and he lost all of his belongings;

The actions of individuals are controlled essentially by one thing, the mind of that individual. The citizens of this world are able to partake in any actions they desire. People should forget the thought of limits and restraints and everything should govern itself. Doing nothing will allow everything to harmonize with each other. These ideas come from the writer Lao-tzu in the piece called “Thoughts from the Tao-te Ching.” Lao-tzu presents many idealist ways in his writing. The main focus is on the idea that people are able to govern themselves and partake in the actions they desire without restraint. As he wisely states, “Practice not-doing, and everything will fall into place (206, Lao-tzu).” This advice is

Infamous for delving into the magnitude of perversity instilled in human nature, Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” (1843) takes a morbid look into its narrator’s mind, as he transforms his benevolent nature to one that allows for utter perversity to ensue. Categorized under the genre of gothic horror, critics read “The Black Cat” as a reaction to the Enlightenment – shunting the idea of humans as rational thinking beings. One does not need to take a leap to analyze this text through an irrationality lens – with the narrator committing atrocities in the “spirit of perverseness”1; from torturing his cats to murdering his wife. With this, it is granted that Poe sheds light on the innate perversity of human nature, but here I argue that in the “The Black Cat” the perversity and irrationality exhumed by the narrator is a reaction to the new requirements of masculinity brought upon by the nineteenth century. With the new pressures to conform to the exaggerated requirements of gender roles, I will assert that Poe’s short story contends against the gender rigidity and its pathological effect on an individual’s psychological.

The gothic story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe contains horror and a moral to the story, but evil is not ultimately destroyed, nor does the protagonist find moral success, so this story somewhat fits the gothic conflict criteria. First of all, the story conveys, “on the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire” (Poe 2). This emphasizes the moral of the story. The moral of the story is crime will never go unpunished, because when the man, also the narrator, hurt the black cat, the next day his house caught on fire, so his actions were indeed punished. Second of all, the text states, “goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and

An unnamed narrator is describing the story. The narrator in the story is first person who is a male. We know the narrator is a first person because he uses pronouns like "I," and "me.” So, the narrator is obviously a first person narrator and he is also the focalizing character because he is talking about things that he did or things happened to him, rather than things he watched or heard about.