The Black Cat - Symbolism Essay

To conclude this argument it is very clear that the actions that took place in, “The black cat,” are the narrators fault. It is on account of him being an alcoholic, being in a poor mental state, and being abusive to his wife and pets that the fault lies in the

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

They named the cat Pluto, which is the name of the god of the underworld in Roman mythology. He mentions that his wife “…made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise” (Poe 513). He says that he is only writing this because he just remembered her saying it to him. On the night of the day that he hung Pluto, he awoke to his house burning down. An image of a gigantic cat with a rope around its neck appeared in the plaster of one of the walls. While patronizing one of his drinking haunts, he sees a very large black cat and thinks it could replace Pluto and take away his pain. He asked if he could purchase the cat, but no one had ever seen the cat before, so he brings it home. The next morning he discovers the cat has a very similar physical trait as Pluto, a missing eye. There was something different about this cat, it had a white mark on the breast of its fur. As time went on the white marking on the cat became a more pronounced outline of the gallows. It was the howl, “…a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell” (Poe 518) that revealed to the police his wife’s body that he had buried in the wall. This presents a question, was Pluto a witch in disguise that returned from the dead to burn the house down and drive his master into complete

I believe that the cat was the only thing that showed her love and attention. Her only son, had a family of his own, her grandchildren were older now, and she felt like she was not important to them anymore, and the children?s mother was involved with the baby. By bringing the cat, she felt like she would not be lonely. The reader can also tell that the woman is extremely prejudice. She refers to the black child as a ?cute little pickaninny? and a nigger.

In the scene where Mattie and Ethan both have dinner together alone in the house there is a cat that both Ethan and Zeena share. Also in the house there is a red glass pickle-dish that Ethan got for Zeena as a wedding present. First we have to see the actual word pickle. Pickles are sour and salty. I feel that this shows the behavior of Zeena that she puts forth towards Ethan. Then we have the cat that accidentally broke the pickle-dish. “The cat, profiting by this unusual demonstration, tried to effect an unnoticed retreat, and in doing so backed into the pickle-dish, which fell to the floor with a crash (Wharton 35).” After that moment, the cat simply sat on Zeena’s rocking chair and thinks that it did not do anything wrong. The cat seems to symbolize Zeena, herself. We can imply that the cat does not like the presence of Mattie being in the house. This shows how Zeena very much dislikes Mattie considering that she is with Ethan most of the time. The pickle-dish is Zeena’s present that Ethan has given to her. The broken pickle-dish symbolizes the broken marriage between Zeena and Ethan. We can see that the marriage between the two is not working out so well and the two does not very much love each other

A fear of darkness is built into mankind. It is an innate sense of fear associated with the unknown dating back thousands of years. The Scarlet Letter defines the sources of darkness through a thematic symbol: black. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the color as a device to explore the inherent idea of black being a symbol of darkness. Characters, settings, items, and even times of day are associated with the onyx hue as the story progresses. Black corresponds with with the devil, also known as the Black Man, corruption, and evil. Black doesn’t just symbolize darkness as a whole—it splits into a multifaceted beast encompassing sin, society, and an all-absorbing power.

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).

As symbolism, metaphors, and irony explain each of their effects to help advance the fact the everyone has perverseness and must be careful if it, it uses the story, “The Black Cat,” to show an example of how serious perverseness can really be, affecting you every way. It doesn’t matter who you are right now or how nice you are, don’t think that you're never gonna changed because one wrong decision, it could change you to someone you don’t even know.Whether you like how you think or deal with situations, perverseness is a part of you, it's just whether you want to keep ignoring it or be controlled by

He claims that he hung the cat because it loved him, and because it did not do anything to deserve the punishment. Because of this, the sin that he committed would jeopardize his soul forever. No sane man would do this to an animal that he claimed to love. Again the narrator is not in control of his body and is being controlled by the supernatural and shows signs of mental illness.

Most importantly the description of the cat happens when the narrator is burying the cat. As the narrator buries the cat, she notes how the dirt falls on its red fur, and then she describes his aquiline nose, this description helps the reader understand that the narrator is emotionally attached to the cat. At the moment

Moreover, it has been argued that the cat is a metaphor for the narrator’s wife. Critics claim that the following passage raises suspicion that the killing of the first cat was actually the murder of his own wife. Poe writes: Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th. 1. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2008. 705-711. Print.

For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him”. He abused all the other animals and even his wife but he never hurt Pluto. The first black cat is symbolic of the narrator’s evil heart. It shows favouritism and obsession with black cats from the start this story, later after he had murdered Pluto, he still went out and realised when he saw the second cat that it is what he was looking for. “What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes.”. The second black cat is symbolic of the narrator’s guilt. This fact about the cat made him hate more simply because he felt guilty of what he had done to Pluto. His guilt and religious torment gives us an insight to his insanity.

Black is required for all other colors to have depth and variation of hue. The black color is the absence of color. It usually has a negative connotation-blacklist, blackmail, black-hearted, and black sheep. In heraldry, black is the symbol of grief. The color black can be serious, professional and conventional. Today, black has become something of a cliché, too often deployed by fashion designers and goth teenagers. The color black affects the mind and body by helping create an inconspicuous feeling boosting confidence in appearance or can produce feelings of emptiness, gloom or

Having moved into a new house, the narrator happens across a black cat, which then follows him home. Nerves rattled, the narrator does his best to avoid the cat. When that fails he tries to kill it, accidentally killing his wife in the process. After sealing his wife's body into the basement wall, he is interviewed by the police. Not unlike in “The Tell-Tale Heart”, the narrator of “The Black Cat” cracks under the pressure of his guilt and gives himself up. Symbolism and suspense make “The Black Cat” worth reading.

The story of “The Black Cat” starts off with a man that seems like an alcoholic, but has the tendencies of a sociopath. The way he acts throughout the story makes him seem like a sociopath, based on the fact that he abuses his wife and cat out of anger, even though he claims to love his wife. Though it is difficult for sociopaths to love and care for others, it isn’t impossible. The man lacks organization, and like common in sociopaths, tend to lean on substances that eventually lead to substance abuse, like alcohol. He talks about his past and his hardships. He also talks of his love for whom he married, and the cat they got together afterwards. The wife was becoming fond of this cat and the cat showed kindness towards his owner, the man. He rapidly becomes more out of control to the point that he starts to abuse his wife, quoted, “I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.” The man became angry that the cat was nice to him and how his wife loved that cat. He later on in the story admits his anger is getting out of control; eventually, he starts to take his anger off on his wife. One day he becomes so fed up with the cat’s kindness that he uses a pen-knife to remove the cat’s eye causing the cat to begin to ignore him, in a sense of distrust and fear. This enraged the owner even more towards the creature that he hung it in a tree. It is not clear