Summary Of ' The Black Cat ' By Edgar Allan Poe

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 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.

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.

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.

Edgar Allen Poe is an author that contributed an abundance amount of knowledge and passion to American literature through his books and short stories. He was one of the first authors who made his living through writing alone. This resulted in a great deal of financial hardships in which he had to learn to prevail through and continue to write stories and books that contributed to American Literature as a whole. Through these hardships he gained a great deal of compassion for his work and for the lives he created through his novels.

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”.

Edgar Allen Poe was one of the most influential and important writers of the nineteenth century. He was the first writer to try to make a living only writing. One of Poe’s most popular short stories, “The Black Cat”, is considered horror fiction or gothic fiction which Poe is known for in his books and short stories because it was a popular genre during his days. In Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”, Poe uses a horror fiction genre, a mentally deranged and evil narrator/character, and symbolism of death to make a thrilling story with tons of suspense, drama, and gruesome detail.

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is one of Poe’s greatest literary works that embodies his signature themes of death, violence, and darkness. Poe’s main character begins his narration of his horrible wrongdoings regarding them as a “series of mere household events” (Poe 705). However, this is where Poe’s satire and irony begins and the story progresses to show the deranged mindset of this character as he tries to justify his actions. As the main character proceeds to rationalize his crime, Poe is able to convey a sense of irony through his use of foreshadowing, metaphors and symbolism.

Edgar Allan Poe uses a great deal of symbolism in his story. He often uses symbolism to illustrate his views of nature. One example of Poe using symbolism in this short story is when he talks about how every time he see’s the black cat, he feels angry and paranoid. A black cat naturally symbolizes evil and for Poe to say that when he see’s a black cat, he feels anger, this gives the reader an ideal that the black cat in Poe’s short story, also symbolizes evil. Poe uses symbolism to impact the overall tone of the story by using symbolism and imagery throughout his story.

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

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.