The Black Cat Analysis Essay

	In Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Black Cat," symbolism is used to show the narrator’s capacity for violence, madness, and guilt. "The Black Cat," written by Edgar Allan Poe serves as a reminder for all of us. The Capacity for violence and horror lies within each of

A struggling writer during the 1840’s is undoubtedly one of the strongest and well-known writers today. Commonly referred to as “The father of the detective story”, Poe’s graphic-gothic work certainly caught the attention of the public, who collectively believe his strange work unintentionally reveals his own troubled mind. His famous piece of work, The Black Cat, reveals the psychology of guilt and delivers varied emotions including superstition, hatred, love, sudden mental and personality transformation, which are all conveyed through Pluto. Literary devices in The Black Cat, along with Poe’s outstanding knowledge of the complex human mind and mental disorders prior to its discovering, reveal the nameless narrator’s unstable mental condition.

Gothic Literature consist of countless varying themes and elements that other works do not contain. Violence and entrapment are two crucial themes that consistently appear in the following literary masterpieces: “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Prey” by Richard Matheson, and “The Feather Pillow” by Horacio Quiroga. Plenty of violence occurs throughout all three literary works in vital situations, beginning with “The Black Cat”, Poe depicts the narrator as an alcoholic that cannot control his emotions/behavior. In the short story, the narrator took “a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the [cat] by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket” (Poe 2) , explaining the gruesome details on the cat by the narrator, aiding in

Edgar Allen Poe was considered to be one of the greatest writers in the 1800's. He is eminently known for his mysterious short stories. In the short story "The Black Cat" the narrator who is also the main character is a loving man who is extremely fond of animals. Nevertheless, the character becomes submerged in the burdensome influence of alcohol. As this disease begins to increase, the characters sensitivity for all things begins to decrease starting from the lesser loved animals, to finally killing off his beloved black cat and his wife.

  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.

Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” left me feeling stupefied and horrified, unable to make sense of what really happened and why. It’s a dark hole of a story that starts out a sensible account of murder, but ends in despair with questions pertaining to mental physique, morality & superstitions. It’s a quest to understand why the narrator led to murder those around him.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”, Poe uses the gothic world of literature to entertain and teach. While readers invoke on this evilly crafted masterpiece, they can’t help but to observe the results of alcoholism. Poe uses character development, point of view, and plot as techniques to enlightening readers of the consequences of alcohol abuse. Poe crafts the lead character’s development throughout the short story illustrating how anyone can fall victim to alcoholism. The lead character is introduced by some accounts as an odd and isolated with his childhood journey, fulfilling the requirements of the gothic tone.

Edgar Allan Poe and 'The Black Cat' 'The Black Cat' is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. Poe was born in 1809, died at the age of 40 in 1849, and was an important contributor to the American Romantic movement. His work has also been described as mystery, macabre, and Gothic. In addition to writing short stories and poems, Poe also worked as a literary critic.

The black cat is a story by Edgar Allen Poe. Some say he's a psychopath, or he's a loony, maybe even some people say he's normal but in reality he was antisocial and he didn't like people. In this story unbelievable things happen because of his imagination. He was married, he had a good wife, they didn't have children, but they were very fond to animals, they had much love for many different animals in their home. The narrator told us in the beginning of the story that he was going to die the next day, throughout the story he told us why.

Sometimes the darkest stories are written to reveal the reality of someone’s life. Edgar Allan Poe was just one of many writers who portrayed their life in their writing. In one of his many pieces called The Black Cat, he makes the narrator an alcoholic just like he was in real life. Poe endures a hard childhood with abuse, neglect, and lack of love. In the story he shows this by having the narrator abuse his wife and cat. He also doesn’t like her wife and neglects her much of the time. Poe is also showing how he was messed up from such a harsh childhood and portrays this by making the narrator insane and murdering his cat while being sober. In his marriage his wife became ill and died and in his story the narrator murders his wife. This could be a metaphorical murder because Poe was poor and couldn’t buy his wife the medicine she needed to get better.

In Heidi Hanrahan’s analysis of “The Black Cat,” By Edgar Allen Poe, she starts off by claiming that this story is “Poe’s commentary on nineteenth-century American domesticity”(Hanrahan, 40). Hanrahan then points out that Pluto should be viewed not as a symbol for something deeper, but as what he is in reality; the narrators pet. She uses excerpts and quotes from texts such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin and The Lamplighter to support her claims that having and “Caring for animals, writers argued, helped people become better children and adults” (Hanrahan, 47). In these excerpts and quotes, parents and people who witnessed someone mistreating an animal either inflicted harm on the abuser or expressed great sympathy for the defenseless animal. Hanrahan explains that, because we must take care of these animals and treat them well, we can learn very important “moral lessons” from them. Ideally, everyone who owned a pet in the nineteenth-century was a person of high morals, therefore, according to Hanrahan, having a pet was “…a marker of domestic bliss and success.”(Hanrahan, 42). Concluding her analysis, Hanrahan explains that by writing The Black Cat, Poe is responding “…to his fellow contemporaries’ celebration of domesticity…” Poe does so by dismissing “…the comforting reassurance of domesticity…” by “Rejecting the idea that a loving home can ensure stability…” (Hanrahan, 53) instead he shows the side of domesticity that many people do not want to see. Poe’s story explains how an ordinary and normally functioning home can quickly turn into a very calamitous situation.

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat”, a person will read an incredulous story that unfolds into a great tale of mystery, murder, and madness. Poe, proven to be a phenomenal author, seems to outdo himself with this particular narrative. You cannot help but wonder who the real culprit is and if the wife’s superstitions are true in the beginning. However, is it possible that there were more reasons why these events took place? Is it naïve to blame the cat for this destruction of man or had it all been happening due to his rage and drunkenness? This story, although quite irrational at times, has provided many questions for the reader. Some are deep while others are more transparent, but there is always room for

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.

Edgar Allan Poe was born January 19, 1809. Many consider him to be the master of mystery and horror. He only lived until he was forty, and during that time he endured a lot of hardships. For one, every woman he ever cared for ended up dead, usually by the dreaded tuberculosis. That included his wife Virginia. The men in his life who were supposed to be there to guide him, well, they were not there. I think that helped him write a lot of his dark and macabre stories. His most famous work is The Raven, a narrative poem that was first published in January 1845. He also wrote other highly regarded short stories such as, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Tell- Tale Heart, and The Black Cat. I will be doing my review on the latter