Edgar Allan Poe 's The Black Cat

Romanticism is an intellectual, spiritual, and literary movement that begins at the start of the nineteenth century and concludes at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of the many characteristics that are associated with Romanticism, the characteristics that are most evident in literature from this period are the characteristics of individuality and imagination. The author Edgar Allen Poe exhibits these characteristics in his works “The Black Cat”, and the “The Raven”.

An analytical essay of “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and “Where is Here?”

Most times, anything abnormal or odd tend to be pushed under the rug. Edgar Allan Poe subtly brings attention to topics the are typically ignored. E. A. Poe had far from a perfect childhood. His father left when he was young and his mother died when he was three. Poe also seemed to have a lonely childhood after his parents were gone. He was separated from his relatives and didn’t appear to have many friends. He attended the army and after went into West Point. His academics there were well but he was eventually kicked out because of poor handlings of his duties. Before Poe died, he struggled with depression and a drinking problem. Some believe Poe’s tragic lifetime was the inspiration for some of his stories. Such as, “The Fall of the House of Usher”. A possible theory about this story is that Roderick and the Narrator were one in the same. This essay will discuss the possibility of them being the same through plot, characterization, and personification.

During his life, Edgar Allan Poe wrote many classic poems and short stories. Two of his most famous works are “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” In “The Fall of the House of Usher,” a man goes to visit his childhood friend and while there witnesses the fall of the Usher family line. “The Masque of the Red Death,” on the other hand, is about Prince Prospero’s attempts to keep death from his abbey and what ensues when death enters. Throughout both short stories, “The Masque of the Red Death” and “The Fall of The House of Usher,” Poe enforces his theme of the fear of death, by carefully crafting the setting, characterization, mood, and point of view of each piece.

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 house seems to be absorbing Usher’s mental health and physical health. Evidence of this is shown by the faltering health and growing fears of Roderick Usher in relation to the growing scariness of the house.

A Sense of Tension in The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

In the story, “The Fall of The House of Usher”, there are many mysterious happenings that go on throughout the story between the characters Roderick Usher and the narrator. Throughout the story, Edgar Allan Poe uses themes such as madness and insanity to connect the house back to Roderick Usher. In the “Fall of The House of Usher”, the narrator goes through many different experiences when arriving to the house. The narrator’s experiences start out as almost unnoticeable in the beginning, turn into bigger ones right before his eyes, and end up becoming problems that cause deterioration of the mind and the house before the narrator even decides to do anything helpful for Roderick and his mental illness. In “The Fall of The

In stanza III, the “luminous windows saw spirits moving musically”, the same two windows who, in stanza VI, become “red-litten windows, seeing vast forms that move fantastically to a discordant melody”. This weakening of the state of the house exemplifies the weakening of the Usher family, as there are only two members left, both of which are ill.

Roderick Usher is a victim of circumstance. The House he has known his whole life seems to have turned against him. Poe

When Edgar Allan Poe wrote “The Black Cat” in 1843, the word “paranoia” was not in existence. The mental illness of paranoia was not given its name until the twentieth century. What the narrator is suffering from would be called paranoia today. The definition of paranoia is psychosis marked by delusions and irrational decisions. This definition could best be described in the nineteenth century as being superstitious and believing that supernatural powers are affecting our decisions. Superstition and being taken over by the supernatural is a recurring metaphor for paranoia in Poe’s story.

Although now seen as the father of the modern horror story, Edgar Allan Poe was previously viewed as a drunken failure. Within Poe’s writings much of his own life riddled with guilt, anxiety, alcohol, depression and death shines through resulting in works that appear unrelated yet once dissected prove similar. This is true for Poe’s works “The Raven” and “The Black Cat”. Poe’s examples of gothic fiction share the use of the color black and a rapid digression of the narrator 's sanity while seemingly unveiling Poe’s internal pain. Despite these similarities, Poe’s works also differ immensely. “The Black Cat” focuses around death while “The Raven” is fixed around discovering the reasoning for a bird 's arrival. Moreover, gothic themes seen within “The Raven” do not necessarily remain constant when compared to “The Black Cat”.

The Fall of the House of Usher is a story “of sickness, madness, incest, and the danger of unrestrained creativity. This is among Poe's most popular and critically-examined horror stories” (Gordon). For example if you were to close your eyes while someone was reading the story you would see the house “decaying” in your imagination (Poe). From the start of the story the narrator’s strange “insufferable gloom” is introduced. He notes the darkness of his surrounding (Gordon). The stories are very deeply described and felt.

“The Fall of the House of Usher” showed Roderick cope with death and gloominess by reading literature books, music, and art because

The title of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” leads the reader to believe the short story is about one black cat. However, almost in the middle of the story, a second cat emerges. Since the title suggest there is only one cat, and the narrator hints the second cat is one of the first cat’s nine lives, comparison of the cats become necessary to see if they are one and the same. For example, both cats desire to be around the narrator and both are missing an eye, but each cat has a major difference in the color of their fur.