The Black Cat, By Edgar Allan Poe

Written by Edgar Allan Poe, “The Raven” is a famous short poem known for the dark fantasy that it portrays. From the mindset of a first person narrative, one may experience the tale through the eyes of a haunted man who is in mourning for the death of his beloved Lenore. As this man sits in his chamber, within a dark and dreary December night, a “raven of the saintly days of yore” visits him. The raven is no ordinary bird, for it is like a ghost, silent, yet it answers every inquiry the man presents in it’s own personal way. This dark and tragic tale grabs one’s attention through the rhythmic, yet melancholy verses, through the classic references, and through the dark imagery that all play a critical role within this poem.

Romanticism is an intellectual, spiritual, and literary movement that begins at the start of the nineteenth century and concludes at the beginning of the twentieth century. Of the many characteristics that are associated with Romanticism, the characteristics that are most evident in literature from this period are the characteristics of individuality and imagination. The author Edgar Allen Poe exhibits these characteristics in his works “The Black Cat”, and the “The Raven”.

“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

In The Black Cat, the narrator admits that it was an “unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself – to offer violence to its own nature – to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only…” that made him carry out the merciless killing of his most favourite pet.

The Narrator in “The Black Cat” is explained as a man who fell into alcoholism and let deception take control over his mindset (Poe 79). His change of perspective over things causes him to believe his beloved first black cat (Pluto) is evil and demonic when the cat bites him one day (Poe 80). During the illusion from the excessive alcohol, he hangs Pluto (Poe 80). From guilt further on from killing his first cat, the narrator adopts another black cat. A while later, he comes to believe that the new cat has the same characteristics that Pluto had (Poe 82). In an act of fit from the new Black cat almost tripping him on the cellar stairs, the narrator starts to try to kill him with an axe (Poe 84). His wife comes in and tries to stop him, but instead that causes him to kill her. The narrator hides his wife’s body in a cellar wall, meanwhile the cat vanished (Poe 84). Four days later, the police came to do a thorough search. The narrator acted strangely calm and innocent, as if he had done nothing. They discovered her corpse with the cat standing on her head howling in the cellar wall though, and took the narrator into custody. (Poe 85-86).

The story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe makes the reader question whether the narrator has two sides to him: one good side, and one that does vile things. In the story, the narrator makes major mistakes like harming those closest to him, including his cat and his wife. Though the narrator presents his story calmly, the reader begins to question his sanity and guilt. The narrator in the “The Black Cat” is insane because he acted erratically, was paranoid, and lacked sympathy for his actions. Edgar Allen Poe in “The Black Cat” is insane and not guilty because he could not control those actions he performed.

The narrator 's desire for complete control, particularly of the old man and his evil eye which bothers him so much it leads him to commit his evil deed. He says that he did not have a motive for killing the old man other than his disgust at the man 's pale blue filmy eye. He describes the eye as "the eye of a vulture" and an "Evil Eye" and he confesses that it frightened him; once he got it into his head to kill the man, he could think of nothing else (Bouchard). “Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees - very gradually- I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever” (Poe 1). He believes that the elimination of the old man, and the successful dismemberment and hiding of the corpse, will ease his extreme nervousness and his madness that will give him complete control over his life within the house. Poe’s interest is less in external forms of power than

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

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”.

The fact is that the way the narrator starts off the story, by describing himself in an overly immaculate way, leads one to the assumption that he is unreliable. However, if he was not as pure of heart from his youth as he insists then the explanation must be that the potential to be evil was contained within the narrator from the day he was born. Indeed, what Edgar Allen Poe was trying to illustrate in the “Black Cat” is that the potential to get to a point where conscience doesn't exist lies within each and every one of us.

By analyzing “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, we can see that the main character in the story makes exceptionally perverse choices. The motive for his actions can be found in clues given throughout the story. We can investigate what happened to the man, and see exactly what caused him to respond in such a violent manner. To further look into the motives for the characters actions, we must inspect and evaluate whether it was self destruction that turned him mad, or an effect of outside events.

Monkey's Paw by W.W. Jacobs and The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe In this essay, I will be answering all the aspects of the question above, with my views and beliefs. I will then finish with a conclusion, stating who has created more suspense than the other through their stories. The monkeys paw is set in a typical horror story setting, an isolated, lonely place with no one around. The story is based around a talisman given to a family which can allegedly grant wishes.

The Sleeper, by Edgar Allan Poe, was first published in the Poems of 1831; this poem has since been revised from its current version which was printed in 1845. This poem was written during the Romanticism Period. This time period is defined as a time in which poets began to “rebel against the Neoclassical restrictions and dominance of reason as poetic aim. Romantic poetry celebrated the imagination over rationality, passion, and dreams over reason and external reality, and isolated individuality over collective humankind. Romantic poetry looked to celebrate both the supernatural and elevate the commonplace.” (Henriksen) Poe’s imagination prevails in this lyric poem. The speaker of the poem experiences an internal conflict while mourning

A man who has abused his pets and killed his wife is sentenced to death, but were these transgressions made in the clarity of mind or was it an act of madness? In the short story THE BLACK CAT by Edgar Allan Poe, we follow the ramblings of a man who is sentence to death on the very next day for his act of murder. Do not take his ramblings to heart as he is an unreliable man but see for it what it really is. The beginning of the story starts out in a jail cell where the narrator is hours away from his death. He says that he wants to recount the events that placed him in this predicament. Since the day he was born, he has been noted for the docility and humanity of his disposition and these qualities flourished as he grew older. He marries a woman who shares his likeness of animals, and they have adopted abundance of pets. His favorite was a black cat named Pluto. The narrator starts drinking and his personality traits change to a detestable person. He begins to abuse his wife and pets verbally and physically. One night while intoxicated, he believes the cat is ignoring him so he grabs it by the throat. Frightened the cat bit his hand, which angered the narrator so he took a pen knife and cut out one of its eyes. A few days later, he is overcome by a guilt and perverse impulse to hang the cat from a tree in the garden even though he knew it was wrong. That same night his house caught on fire and he lost everything. The next day he returns to the burned down house and sees a