Optimism In Poe's The Black Cat

Concerning “The Black Cat”, Poe vividly portrays individuality as a connecting theme to Romanticism because of the narrator’s treatment of each character of the story’s characters, his wife and the cat. In the story, the narrator kills his wife in a “more than demonical” rage, for no other reason than to express his rage at his wife’s interference between him and the cat (723). He acted alone, with no prompting from anyone other than himself. The cat as a character receives no different of treatment from the narrator’s wife: even the wife’s own intervention on the cat’s behalf does not save it from its eventual demise, rather the narrator “firmly resolved to put into death”(723). The only way the cat escapes death is through hinting at the narrator’s murder to the police through the house’s walls.

“The Black Cat” is one of Poe’s more gruesome stories. It is one of the darkest stories he has written. The narrator opens the story by saying he is sane. It is the night before he dies. The story talks about the narrator’s past and how he knew so many people who all

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 Allen Poe’s short story The Black Cat immerses the reader into the mind of a murdering alcoholic. Poe himself suffered from alcoholism and often showed erratic behavior with violent outburst. Poe is famous for his American Gothic horror tales such as the Tell-Tale Heart and the Fall of the House of Usher. “The Black Cat is Poe’s second psychological study of domestic violence and guilt. He added a new element to aid in evoking the dark side of the narrator, and that is the supernatural world.” (Womack). Poe uses many of the American Gothic characteristics such as emotional intensity, superstition, extremes in violence, the focus on a certain object and foreshadowing lead the reader through a series of events that are horrifying

The main themes of Edgar Allan Poe’s works are death, perversity, revenge and destruction. The settings he employed in the given short stories, especially in The Fall of the House of Usher and The Black Cat are Gothic. Therefore, naturally the mood of these stories would be dark and sepulchral. However, this is not a trivial employment undertaken to put the reader in a certain kind of zone.

“The Black Cat” is an old short story written by Edgar Allan Poe an American Writer. It is a horror fiction story which demonstrate the fascinating changes that the human mind has during the abuse of alcohol. The protagonist is physiological corrupter by the abuse of alcohol and his mind play games with itself. He changes his personality as the story progresses and the way that he treats others around him. Everyone is affected by his behavior even his lovely cat. The cat becomes the object of his hate and in some way it is the first thing that he blames about his irrational acts. In the short story “The Black Cat”, Edgar Allan Poe, uses a varied forms of Irony, dramatic Irony, verbal Irony, and situation irony to produce a transformation of love threw hate along of the story.

  The use of vivid imagery in “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most fascinating aspects of this story to me. Poe shapes the mood of suspense using language, symbols, and the supernatural in such a dark and intriguing way. These three things create a sense of foreshadowing, which helps set the stage for the reader and navigates the path from one shocking event to the next. Poe’s use of these three literary techniques that incorporate an added twist as the narrator hopes that the reader, like himself, will be convinced that these events were not "...an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects" (Poe, 695).

Edgar Allen Poe continues to astonish us with a fine tale of twisted horror and alcohol-drenched debauchery in ‘The Black Cat.” In classic Poe style, the story is written in a first-person perspective giving us deep insight into the crimes and atrocities that are committed. Hidden throughout this yarn are examples of self-denial and revenge. The events, as told by the narrator, are lessons of life that should be learned at a young age. First off, the narrator refuses to take action for his crimes and his behavior.

Throughout all the short stories and poems wrote by Edgar Allan Poe, some connections can be made on the content. The Black Cat, and The Raven, are two narratives wrote 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 rising 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.

Within us, we have the dark and the bright side. We do the good, but have evil thoughts and some people act on it, thinking it may drag them to feel good in doing so. This informative short-story provides a perfect example on how we take control of our mind. Edgar Allan Poe, the author of “The Black Cat”, develops the central idea that violence solves problems. On the eve of an unnamed narrator’s death, he writes a story of how his life collapsed, turning around his love for everybody and falling into a big pile of a hopeless mess and madness by committing brutal actions.

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.

Edgar Allen Poe has created many stories that are dark, suspenseful, and murderous such as The Tell- Tale Heart and The Black Cat. His works tend to resemble one another in style, mood, theme, and plot. The ways in which these elements are displayed show contrast between the two. The Tell- Tale Heart and The Black Cat are two brutal tales with similar themes about being insane. Both stories are told from the first person point of view with a maniacal narrator.

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Black Cat follows a man who is confessing his most brutal sins which have led him to where he is now; in a jail cell awaiting his execution. This man commits some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, but he wishes for the audience to see them as “commonplace” (137), as he does not see his own actions in such a light. The Narrator sees his actions as “ordinary” (137) and “natural” (137) and hopes that the audience will feel the same way. The Narrator attempts to convince the audience that he did nothing wrong and that anybody in his situation would’ve done the same things; this is the theme of The Black Cat: Justifying one’s own actions. In the opening two paragraphs this theme is presented in order to set the tone for the remainder of the story and help readers gain a better idea of how the story will play out. It also helps readers to characterize the Narrator, which aids in understanding his actions and the story as a whole. Edgar Allen Poe effectively presents the theme of justifying one’s own actions in the first two paragraphs of The Black Cat by having the Narrator briefly detail his sanity, present his actions as commonplace, and provide a positive self-characterization. Poe’s effective communication of theme within the first two paragraphs shows how well written the story is and makes it a very enjoyable read. The Narrator sees himself as a good person who did nothing wrong and will not accept others seeing him as anything less. However, this

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.

“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