Personality Change In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan 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 storyteller begins the story by stating from an early age he has had an obsession with animals. Poe states, “This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and, in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure.” (Poe) This statement is evidence of the insanity the narrator experienced at a very young age. He goes on to explain that he and his wife have many domesticated animals, including Pluto, a large beautiful black cat. He describes the mutual fondness between him and the cat. This relationship between him and the cat, is strange. For years they have a growing friendship, until he started drinking alcohol in excess. The narrator goes on to explain how one night after getting completely intoxicated, the cat panicked and bit him. This causes the author to become angry and in a psychotic fit of rage, he takes a knife and cuts out one of the cat’s eyes. After this encounter, the cat fears him, and tries to avoid him at all cost. In the beginning, the storyteller is regretful and feels remorseful for the cruelty. But soon we see the narrator’s insanity expressed when Poe states, “But this feeling soon gave place

The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe is a horror story about a man who loses everything he once had due to his alcohol use/abuse. The story begins when the narrator confesses his love for animals. The narrator marries a woman and introduces her to a black cat, named Pluto. The narrator begins to suffer from violent and uncontrollable mood swings, caused from influence of alcohol. After coming home drunk one night the narrator lashes out at Pluto, he quickly tries to grab the cat, only to be bitten.

Edgar Allan Poe, the acclaimed poet, has created a multitude of short stories, one being “The Black Cat”.The short story depicts an alcoholic on his slow descent into insanity; this relates heavily to the author’s own life, being an extreme alcoholic himself. The narrator of “The Black Cat” is not only driven mad by alcohol, but also by a black cat, as you might guess from the title of the story. At the beginning of “The Black Cat”, you can tell the narrator’s alcohol addiction is taking its toll when he starts abusing his wife and pets. His actions slowly led up to him killing his cat, Pluto, and then killing his own wife because tried to defend their second cat from him. His meticulous writing style, diction, syntax, and imagery in his short stories are used to portray his emotions.

In “The Black Cat,” the man was married to a patient and caring woman. They acquired another cat that, according to the man, looked remarkably like Pluto (709). One day, the cat almost tripped the man while they were walking down a flight of stairs. This “exasperated” the man “to madness” (Poe 709). He lifted an axe and “aimed a blow at the animal,” (Poe 709).

Depersonalization Disorder is a very rare yet life consuming disorder. The disorder can be obtained through many different aspects. Some people gain the disorder from substance abuse, others from emotional trauma. Once a person becomes affected by the disorder, they begin to display symptoms such as out of the body or mind experiences. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”, the narrator has committed murder of both man and animal, then attempts to argue reason for his actions.

The Narrator, himself does not trust his own logic or reason, he relies on his readers to be more sane than he is to make sense of the the horrendous acts he has done against his wife and pets. “Hereafter, perhaps, some itellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place—some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural cuases and effects.” The Narrartor would have us believe that he started out being a nice kid and through day to day common events and by no fault of his, he turned into a vile human being capable of doing horrendous things to his wife and pets. When the Narrator was a child he was known to be gentle and had a “tenderdess of heart”, so much so that he was often bullied by other children .

The Black Cat is one of Poe’s most memorable stories. The story was first published in 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. This like a study of the psychology of guilt, paired with other works by Poe. “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” (Cleman). 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

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is a short story about a man who owns many pets but is particularly focused on his black cat, Pluto. For some time, he enjoyed the company of the cat but as he grew older he developed a drinking problem that caused anger issues. “I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them.” His drinking problem caused him to be more moody and violent toward both his wife and pets. He often took out his anger on his pets, specifically the black cat. The man shows hatred toward the cat in many ways because of his problems and experiences revenge and karma in different ways throughout the story. The man characterized in “The Black Cat” experiences and greatly suffers from having anger issues and a drinking problem which later leads to the death of his innocent black cat and his wife.

In the story “The Black Cat” the narrator has a love for animals. There is this black cat that he loves named Pluto. One day the narrator comes home drunk and angry. He calls for Pluto and at first Pluto doesn’t come. Once Pluto comes the narrator is angry and drunk and scoops one of Pluto’s eyes out with a knife. The narrator is drunk again a few days

In the short story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe the reader is led onto a journey in which they are told the gruesome actions of a disturbed narrator. This subjective narrators' actions are spurred by a heavy alcohol addiction and deteriorating mental state. The narrator tells the reader of his deeds,which ultimately led to his demise, starting with the killing of Pluto. Pluto was the household cat of the narrator and his wife. He was very much cared and adored for but one night after returning home “much intoxicated” the narrator carved one of the poor beasts eyes after he upset him. After that event a disagreeable mood leeches onto the narrator and he decides to hang the pet using a noose and attaches it onto the limb of a tree . A

After that it was another night he was at the bar and he saw a cat and loved the cat, so he decided to take it home. The morning after the cat joined the family he realized that the cat didn't have an eye just like the other cat. His wife admittedly fell in love with the new cat, and he hated him. He felt that the cat was bad luck and wanted him gone, so one day he was in the basement cutting wood and the cat came down and he was just about to take off his head with the ax when the wife comes running down that stairs and yells at him to stop. That made him so angry so he swung the ax and killed his wife.

At the beginning of the story, the man was essentially “happy” with his wife and black cat, Pluto. The story is light until the man begins drinking. He has begun to like that the cat did not want to be around him and avoided his presence anymore. This is possibly due to the fact that he is not happy with his drinking. However, one night when he came home and frightened the cat, which

Like in many of his tales, the narrator murders both his beloved Pluto and his wife, on two separate occasions, yet denies that he has been stricken by madness and is instead intent on setting the record straight. While the narrator blames his actions on his alcoholism, it can be argued that his actions were not only influenced by alcohol, but also by his psyche. For example, he believes that his beloved Pluto's doppelgänger is out to get him. Not only is the doppelgänger a constant reminder of how badly the narrator treated his cat, but it also serves as a constant reminder of how he killed it; the doppelgänger is missing an eye, just like Pluto, and also has a mark that resembles a noose, which is how the narrator killed his cat. It is the doppelgänger's physical appearance that drives the narrator to believe that it is his duty to destroy it before it destroys him.

In the short story, both cats follow the narrator around the house; however, their motives seem to be different. The first cat, Pluto is loved by the narrator. According to the narrator, Pluto was “my favorite pet and playmate”, and it seems the cat reciprocated the love and would follow the narrator throughout the house (Poe). Pluto wanted to be with the narrator so much that the narrator had difficulty leaving the house and making sure the cat did not follow him outdoors. Their companionship lasted for several years, with the narrator being the one to solely feed Pluto and Pluto wanting to be by his side. Until one day, the narrator’s personality changed, and he killed Pluto and gets the second cat out of his feelings of remorse. The second cat was loathed by the narrator, but just as Pluto, the second cat wanted to be near the narrator. Likewise, the second cat would follow the narrator’s footsteps throughout the house, which would irritate the narrator profusely. The irritation seemed to encourage the cat to be around him even more and included the cat sitting under the chair, jumping onto the narrator’s lap and cuddling with him. The cat seemed to enjoy making the narrator angry and the narrator would wake at night and find the cat lying on his chest and as he states, “find the hot breath of the thing upon my face (Poe).” Since the second cat wanted to be near the narrator even though the narrator despised him, enhanced the belief that it was the second life of Pluto wanting the narrator to remember what he had once done, but that was not the only similarity.