Examples Of Insanity In The Black Cat

“The fury of the demon instantly possessed me. I did not know myself. My own soul seemed to fly suddenly from my body. A devilish hatred, fed by the gin, filled me.”-The Black Cat. This story is about once kind, tenderhearted person who turned into a psychopath. The personality of the narrator turned violent and abusive from his alcohol addiction, causing him to kill his wife. In The Black Cat, Edgar Allen Poe uses point of view, conflict, and characterization to suggest that “One’s conscience gradually becomes perverseness with alcohol usage, causing unforeseen choices and consequences.”

Insanity is a mental illness that causes people to not be able to recognize the difference between what is real and what is fake. They are unable to control their abrupt behavior and they cannot manage their own affairs. Someone who is insane should not be held accountable for actions they have no control over. In the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe the narrator is in fact insane because he is unable to tell the difference between what is right and what is wrong, has no control over this actions, and he cannot differentiate fantasy from reality. He should not be sent to prison but instead receive help.

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.

Edgar Allan Poe was an extraordinary author whose horror and mystery stories leave an impression on readers even today. In some of Poe’s works, the narrator’s thoughts and actions make the reader question the narrator’s sanity. Two good examples are Poe’s poem “The Raven” and his short story “The Black Cat”; there is plenty of evidence to support that both of the narrators are not completely sane. In Poe’s “The Raven” and “The Black Cat,” both narrators exhibit symptoms of mental illness, including hallucinations, illogical thinking, mood swings, and substance abuse.

Edgar Allan Poe said “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity.” Throughout his short stories; “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Poe sets up his characters to subconsciously reveal their insanity. Often using syntax clues and patterns, Poe shows the madness of the narrators of his short stories. The constant theme of denial of insanity further convinces the reader of the character’s psychosis. Characters themselves often prove they are not in touch with reality through their actions. Through syntax, denial of insanity, and character’s actions, Poe allows his narrators in “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart” to reveal their own insanity.

The narrative, “The Black Cat”, includes many symbols. The black cat is more than just the title; it is the legend, Pluto, that leads the narrator down the path toward insanity (“The Black Cat”). Pluto was the ruler of the underworld and the judge of the dead in classical mythology. This connection is not just an accident that Poe put together. A home is supposed to be a place where an individual feels safe and secure with or without others. Within this story, a home becomes a dark and tragic place, full of madness and murder. “I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence” (Poe 719). The narrator turned on his pets before his wife; maybe the black cat and his wife was just too much for him to handle. The narrator kills the black cat, and then proceeds to kill his own wife. A couple in a home, would normally be happy and intact with a cat as a pet, but in this narrative, this household is not happy and healthy; his wife and pet become prey to his deteriorating mental state. Another symbol found in “The Black Cat”, is his wife; she could have been a hurtful or demanding force in his life. The narrator describes her as having “that humanity of feeling” (Poe 721). His wife at any point could have either saved him, herself, or both. She could have saved herself by running away from the alcohol-induced man. The symbols that were incorporated in this narrative made the narrator’s psychological state more comprehensible. The conflicts within this narrative were more easily understood because of the symbolism used, to tie the depressing narrative together.

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.

Everyone does something at some point in their life that can be considered insane. Sometimes it’s simple things like trying a new food or a new hobby. However, other times it can be more extreme such as stepping outside of the status quo or jumping out of an airplane. The story, “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl takes the term “insane” a bit farther. The story depicts the life of Mary Maloney and describes the event in which she hit and killed her husband with a leg of lamb after receiving unfortunate news from husband when he returned home from work. However, Mary Maloney is innocent due to reason of Insanity due to her inability of being aware of her actions throughout the story. She does this by portraying the symptoms of a person with schizophrenia, attempting to maintain to the forced conformity of gender roles, and her over attachment or jealousy for her husband.

With the evolution of humanity comes the evolution of words, as is only natural. In the recent past, insanity was a medical term used to diagnose mental illnesses, among others. It’s still used in a similar manner in everyday language, though it has formally shifted to a legal definition, which is that the defendant cannot tell right from wrong. In literature, authors who create “insane” characters add to the unreliability of first person narrators, thus adding another layer of questions for the reader, such as whether a character is fully aware of their actions. After Fortunato insults Montresor in “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe, Montresor takes it upon himself to punish Fortunato by bricking him into a wall of the Montresor family vaults. Doug Spaulding, from Ray Bradbury’s “The Utterly Perfect Murder”, also takes revenge on his tormentor by figuratively murdering him and rescuing his childhood self. According to the legal definition of insanity, both Montresor and Doug Spaulding fit the criteria due to their unsettled minds, trauma from abusive relationships and other underlying mental health issues.

The label “insanity” is reserved for people whose behaviors fall well outside the boundaries of normal social interaction. Edgar Allan Poe, the author of The Tell-Tale Heart, wrote about an unnamed narrator who goes through a lot. The narrator lives with an old man who he says has an evil eye. The narrator feels threatened by the eye and will not stop until it is at rest. The narrator ends up killing the man, chopping up his body, and putting it under the floorboards.

In the story “ The Tell Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe, is about a unidentified narrator who kills an old man because he is disturbed by the old mans blue eye. The narrator is not mentally stable, he cant control his emotions and actions and is insane. The definition of sane from the dictionary is “the ability to think and behave in a normal and rational manner; sound mental health” (google). The narrator is not only insane for killing the old man’s vulture eye, he chops up the body in pieces and tries to hide his crime, and he has a disease that makes him hear things.

When looking at a piece of literature through a psychological approach it is easy to apply Sigmund Freud’s theories of the id, ego, and superego, which focus on conscious and unconscious behavior. When analyzing many of Poe’s works, critics tend to look through a psychological lens. Specifically in Poe’s The Black Cat. Some critics believe that Poe’s alcoholism is reflected in the piece, but many, such as James W. Gargano “advised the tales readers to avoid the biographical pitfall of seeing Poe and the first-person narrator of The Black Cat as ‘identical literary twins’” (Piacentino 1). It is due to his childhood that Poe’s narrator in The Black Cat subconsciously places animals before humans, thus leading to him to murder his wife.

The psychology or mental state of the narrator of Edger Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat” is a broad area to analyze. The human mind is one of the most articulate system that is made in this world. It’s difficult to understand everybody’s actions and doings because everyone possesses their own unique patterns of thinking. Today, the world of psychology is hard at work to try to figure out the best answers to the questions we have about the mid. Even before the subject of psychology was produced, some writers loosely described the psychology and everything that goes into it. Edger Allan Poe was one of them who portrayed his characters in way that the reader could look further in to their actions and their behaviors to understand the mind better. Poe seemed to have an understanding and fascination for the human, and “The Black Cat” is one of them. The protagonist of the story and his psychology has brought into light in this short story. In this work, Edgar Allan Poe presents the main character, the protagonist, who becomes victim to many complex mind issues such as guilt, perversity, superstitions, revenge, and reverse psychology.

Edgar Allan Poe is well-known for his captivating tales of the macabre through eloquence and wit. In many of his short stories, Poe was able to exploit his audience's fears through allegory and descriptive details of murder and madness. One of Poe's captivating, yet mad, narrators helms "The Black Cat," a tale of paranoia, alcoholism, and murder. There are several things that make the narrator an intriguing character including his psychological state, the imp of the perverse, and the effect that alcoholism has on him.

“The Black Cat” is one of Poe’s most memorable stories. The story first published in 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post, is a study of the psychology of guilt, paired with other works by Poe. The start of the narrative should intrigue readers, by the imagery that is recognized by writers. John Cleman wrote the article “Irresistible Impulses: Edgar Allan Poe and the Insanity Defense” analyzing the work written by Poe and his usage of themes and symbols. At the beginning of this article, Cleman stated this: “Near the beginning of the tale, the narrator says he would be “mad indeed” if he should expect a reader to believe the story, implying that he has already been accused of madness” (630). Poe is creating a sense of confusion for the readers and making them think more about the story before reading. The story is centered around a black cat and the idea of deterioration of a man. From his prison cell, the narrator is writing the story about his life, which is falling apart; He has a love for animals, and for his wife that he married young. One of the things that he takes on as a hobby, is drinking, and when he starts to drink, his personality shifts, as he starts abusing his wife and pets. The narrative is full of gruesome scenes in which he hurts his pets, including murdering them. Later, he continues the abuse and kills his wife, also. Eventually, the cops show up, and take down the wall. “Then quickly they began to pick at the stones, and in a short time they saw