The Black Cat Research Paper

“Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” Poe believed that a story had to have the reality of horror with in. All of his stories had gothic horror in them. Edgar Allen Poe’s short stories, “The Black Cat” and “The Masque of the Red Death” are good examples of gothic literature because they involve paranormal activity, insane characters, and terrifying deaths.

Gothic literature is when the setting of a novel or passage is described as being gloomy or has a dark setting. In gothic literature the author might often write about a bleak setting, tortured characters or have a strange or violent plot. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a good example of Gothic Literature because in the story he expresses it as being dark and mysterious, also it incorporates gloomy moods, and a bleak setting in the story. For example, in Poe’s

	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

Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” is a great example of Gothic Literature because of the way the story was

Gothic literature was a popular writing tradition of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and is still used today. Gothic literature explores the wicked, perverse and dark desires. Gothic conventions can include burial alive, ghosts, hysteria, ruined bodies, tales within tales, undead characters, underground spaces, and more. Gothic themes are guilt, sex, violence, death, and cosmic struggle. Gothic stories or poems should inspire terror or horror. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the many well-known Gothic writers. In his stories he uses a variety of themes to carry out the gothic theme.

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher is a good example of Gothic Literature because of the characters in psychological and physical torment. For example, in Poe’s story, “The writer spoke of acute bodily illness-of a mental disorder which oppressed him-and of an earnest desire to see me,” (Poe 2). Roderick, being the writer, wrote to the narrator to come visit him because he is

Gothic literature usually brings to mind Edgar Allen Poe and dark foggy London streets but that's not all gothic literature is. Gothic literature usually has themes of mystery and eerie settings or characters. Themes such as physical and mental decay and isolation, abandonment, and entrapment are very prominent in Prey by Richard Matheson, The Feather Pillow by Horacio Quiroga and The Black Cat by Edgar Allen Poe.

Gothic Literature is a writing style that has dark setting, it has an overall atmosphere of mystery, exoticism, death. A Gothic story will revolve around a large, ancient house or an obscure setting that conceals a terrible secret or that serves as the refuge of an especially frightening and threatening character

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

A strong example of Gothic Literature is “The Fall of the House of Usher”, by Edgar Allen Poe. This is a strong example of Gothic Literature because, Roderick is a mentally ill man who asks his friend, the narrator, to come visit because he’s always nervous. Roderick, and with the assistance of the narrator, buried his sister, Madeline, alive. She eventually came back and haunted Roderick and killed him. Based on this, That plot contains several elements of Gothic Literature. As well as some of the things the narrator said. For example, at the beginning of the story, when the narrator shows up at the House of Usher, he describes the feeling he gets while looking at the house. The narrator says, “There was an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart - an unredeemed dreariness of thought which no goading of imagination could torture into aught of the sublime” (14). The narrator’s feelings of the house are a superb example of Gothic Literature because, his description being very dark and gloomy display some of the elements of Gothic Literature. Therefore, “The Fall of

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.

"I grew day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others" (Poe 671). Poe had a very complicated relationship with transcendentalism, and you can clearly see this rocky relationship in two of his works. One of these works is "The Black Cat". A brief summary of this short story; the narrator of this story is an insane man who knows he's about to die. The story talks about a cat that he used to have, named Pluto. He was very close to the cat until he starts to abuse his wife and other animals. The cat no longer likes the narrator, then the cat gets hung. While this happens the narrator's house burns down. Later a new cat comes alone, much like Pluto, and at first, he has a close relationship with this cat. Once it's noticed the cat only has one eye, he hates the cat. Later the narrator strikes his wife on the head with an axe, and hides her body. What he didn't know is while burying the body of his wife, the cat ends up with her. The police then show up just to look around, and the cat starts making noise. The police hear this and break down the wall, and here they find the cat and the man's dead wife. The other literary work that refutes transcendentalism is the poem "Annabel Lee". A condensed summary of that poem; the narrator of the poem, and Annabel Lee fell in love while they are young. Even after Annabel Lee passes, the narrator does not give up on the love they shared. After reading "Annabel Lee" and "The Black Cat", it is clear that Poe denies many concepts of transcendentalism. In looking for the answers to life's questions, Poe relies on the idea that human intuition is harmful. The narrator in "Annabel Lee" alludes to this selfish intuition when his obsession with himself and the idea of love causes him to lose his Annabel Lee. Then again in "The Black Cat", he focusses purely on finding answers within the dark. Transcendentalist does not believe in a dark intuition, they like to look at nature and its light side for the answers to life's questions.

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 Allen Poe is recognized as a great writer of Gothic. Poe stories all relate to each other in some way. Most of his short stories consist of mystery and horror. The two stories I choose was the “The Black Cat” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. They both can be compared to each other by their setting, characters, and theme.

The Black Cat, written by Edgar Allen Poe, is a short story about a man, also the narrator, who starts out by living a “happy” life with his wife and favorite black cat, Plato. Although, he begins to be consumed by his drinking and becomes irritable. The black cat used to be by his side but now avoids him. This irritability leads him into becoming overly aggressive, which results in him hurting and murdering the cat. Then, a second cat appears who looks the same as Pluto but with a white spot on his chest. Eventually, the man starts to feel anger towards the cat and attempts to murder him with an axe, but his wife stops him. Unfortunately, his wife was hit in the head. The man then decides to bury his dead wife in his basement wall. He thinks he has got away with murder, but in the end, one learns that he had accidentally buried the cat alive with his wife. The cat reveals his hiding spot when he is caught by the police. Although it seems that the main character has committed these actions solely from alcoholism, it is obvious that there are signs he is also suffering from a mental illness.