Why Is The Black Cat Symbolism

“The fury of the demon instantly possessed me. I did not know myself. My own soul seemed to fly suddenly from my body. A devilish hatred, fed by the gin, filled me.”-The Black Cat. This story is about once kind, tenderhearted person who turned into a psychopath. The personality of the narrator turned violent and abusive from his alcohol addiction, causing him to kill his wife. In The Black Cat, Edgar Allen Poe uses point of view, conflict, and characterization to suggest that “One’s conscience gradually becomes perverseness with alcohol usage, causing unforeseen choices and consequences.”

First is the history of Halloween all according to a 2017 article from LiveScience by Benjamin Radford. Around 2,000 years ago in the United Kingdom Ireland, and the northern part of France the people called the Celts started this holiday. They called it Samhain back then instead of Halloween. November 1st marked their new year which resulted in them celebrating on October 31st. The New Year brought wintertime which to them meant death. On the night before winter which was October 31st, they believe that the spirits of the Dead came back. They wore costumes, put on bonfires, burned crops and sacrificed animals. When the Romans

	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

Introduction: Patrons of the season of Halloween spend over $2.5 billion dollars every year on candy, costumes, and decorations. Every year millions of kids get dressed up, knock on doors, and beg for candy. Have you ever wondered where this strange tradition originated? The three most important points of Halloween can be summed up by looking at its origins, how it came to include jack-o-lanterns and bobbing for apples, and how it is celebrated today with trick-or-treating and haunted houses.

The fear of Halloween can stem from a dislike or fear of the holiday's history. The root word of samhainophobia is Samhain, which is a Celtic word meaning summer’s end. They celebrated Samhain with huge bonfires where crops and animals were sacrificed. The Celts believed that on Samhain the veil between the land of the living and dead was thin, which allowed for ghost, spirits, and the devil himself to pass through to the land of the living. It was also believed the Druids-the Celts priest-could predict the future on Samhain. The Celts wore costumes both as disguises and for performing the sacrifices at the bonfires. Eventually Rome conquered the

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

Celebrated on October 31st, the festival of Halloween (also known as Samhain) includes dressing in costume, trick or treating, and decorating. Tracing back in history Halloween is considered to be one of America’s oldest holidays, and is still celebrated today. Halloween is believed to come from Celtic rituals. Celtics believed the cosmological myth of Saman (Lord of the Dead). Saman would call on the souls of the people that passed away that year to take them to the afterlife or underworld; the Celtic underworld identifies with the Christian Hell. In order for the spirits to believe they were on their own, the living would wear costumes and mask their identities, along with fairies, witches and demons. This functions as a cosmological myth because it provides a creation story and framework in which this universe occupies and includes many other realms of existence. Another tradition that followed was to give food to the Saman, to persuade him to be more tolerant while he judged the dead ancestors of the living, which he would chose to take to the underworld. In this essay I will further investigate what the origins of Halloween consist of and how it offers reasoning for trick-or-treating. Also I will examine how trick-or-treating, which is still continued today, is connected to ancient Celtic festivals.

The narrative, “The Black Cat”, includes many symbols. The black cat is more than just the title; it is the legend, Pluto, that leads the narrator down the path toward insanity (“The Black Cat”). Pluto was the ruler of the underworld and the judge of the dead in classical mythology. This connection is not just an accident that Poe put together. A home is supposed to be a place where an individual feels safe and secure with or without others. Within this story, a home becomes a dark and tragic place, full of madness and murder. “I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence” (Poe 719). The narrator turned on his pets before his wife; maybe the black cat and his wife was just too much for him to handle. The narrator kills the black cat, and then proceeds to kill his own wife. A couple in a home, would normally be happy and intact with a cat as a pet, but in this narrative, this household is not happy and healthy; his wife and pet become prey to his deteriorating mental state. Another symbol found in “The Black Cat”, is his wife; she could have been a hurtful or demanding force in his life. The narrator describes her as having “that humanity of feeling” (Poe 721). His wife at any point could have either saved him, herself, or both. She could have saved herself by running away from the alcohol-induced man. The symbols that were incorporated in this narrative made the narrator’s psychological state more comprehensible. The conflicts within this narrative were more easily understood because of the symbolism used, to tie the depressing narrative together.

Several activities take place in the evening, but the most antipated one by far is going trick-or treating. Both children and adults dress up in costumes and walk from door to door collecting candy from their friends and neighbors. This ritual is from Samhain, an ancient Celtic gala that marked the end of the harvest season and the start of a new year. The Celts thought that the spirits left their world to interact with the living and so wore disgues and made food offerings to try to appease them. Bobbing for apples is another modern-day Halloween custom that has Celtic roots. Apples were the fruit of death. The Celts believed that the departed had to undergo two trials before they could make it to heaven. “The water ordeal is the familiar bobbing for apples, while the fire ordeal involves trying to take a bite out of an apple attached to a hanging stick which also bears a lit candle” (Kondratiev, par. 12). Playing this game attuned the dead to the needs of the living over the course of the following

Halloween is not only one of the most popular holidays, but is also one of the oldest, and can be dated back to about 2,000 years ago. It is also known to have started

One group of skeletons were known as The Tricksters. They believed that Halloween itself was for them. These are the skeletons you see at stores and outside houses (they are not toys and you should always be cautious around them okay just a friendly tip). They thought that skeletons were the main part of Halloween, and fought over the fact that they were not the sole reason that Halloween existed (in my opinion, they kinda seemed like pretentious

Borrowing from Irish and English traditions, Americans began to dress up in costumes and go house to house asking for food or money. Over time this tradition turned in to today modern “trick or treating”. In the late 1800s, America turned Halloween into a holiday more about community and neighborly get-togethers than about ghosts, and witchcraft. As the centuries changed Halloween parties for both children and adults became the most common way to celebrate the day. Parties focused on games, foods of the season and festive costumes. Parents were encouraged by newspapers and community leaders to take anything “frightening” or “grotesque” out of Halloween celebrations. Because of these efforts, Halloween lost most of its superstitious and religious overtones by the beginning of the twentieth century (Kammen).

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.

Furthermore, there are many traditional rituals and superstitions associated with Halloween. Since the ancient Celts thought the nonliving roamed the earth, they created costumes out of animal pelts to ward off evil spirits. Fortunetelling and the utilization of large bonfires for sacrifices and purification were also early customs. After the Christianization of the holiday to commemorate saints and martyrs, the same festivities, bonfires, and guising remained, but October 31st was renamed All-Hallows Eve. This inevitably turned into Halloween. Similar to European traditions, America’s Halloween has also evolved throughout the years. Halloween’s recognition was originally restricted in colonial America due to its non-Christian beliefs and practices, and it was practiced at a more local level. According to an online source, “The first celebrations included ‘play parties,’ public events held to celebrate the harvest, where neighbors would share stories of the dead and tell each other’s fortunes, dance, and sing” (“History of Halloween”). Festivities were akin to European traditions, but also included ghost stories and pranking. Beginning in the twentieth century, Halloween

The Black Cat is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe that was first published in the edition of The Saturday Post. Events in “The Black Cat” happen in 1843 and several places such as the jail cell, the narrator’s home, the yard of the burned house, the new house, the bar where the second cat is found, and the cellar. Events in the story start the man’s house. After first house burns dawn the story transfers the second house. The most important action occurred in the cellar of the next house.