Term Paper on ""The Black Cat"

Term Paper 3 pages (1052 words) Sources: 1 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

"The Black Cat" appears to contain a number of themes that fascinated

its author Edgar Allan Poe, such as reincarnation, perversity (i.e. a form

of weirdness) and retribution and/or revenge. In the tale itself, Poe

mentions that the main protagonist (an unnamed narrator) has experienced "a

series of mere household events" that have "tortured" and destroyed him

(234), due to having Pluto, a black cat, as a pet, a most beautiful animal,

coal-black all over, taken in by the narrator and his wife. This unknown

narrator, perhaps Poe himself, seems to have a serious problem with

alcohol, for he states that at times he is driven insane with drink and

ends up doing things that go against his morals. He calls alcohol "the

Fiend Intemperance" which means that alcohol, at least for the narrator, is

like a fiend or a demon that attacks the mind and leads to utter

destruction.

The narrator then becomes drunk and cuts out the eye of the black cat

with a pen knife, whereby he once again "plunged into excess and soon

drowned in wine all memory of the deed" (235). As the cat recovers from his

horrible wounds, the narrator becomes extremely melancholic and upon

getting drunk again, he takes the black cat, slips a noose around its neck

and hangs it from the limb of a tree. Then, his house burns down under

mysterious circumstances and once the fire is extinguished, the narrator

sees the image of the dead black cat set against some plaster left over

from the fire. After the fire, the narrator obtains another black cat that

is very similar to Pluto except for a spot of white between his front legs.

For some strange reason, the narrator comes to hate this new cat and when

he tries to kill it, his wife steps in, trying to stop him, but he kills

her with an axe and then proceeds to bury her body behind the wall in his

cellar.

Much like the narrator in Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart," the narrator

in "The Black Cat" cannot live with himself and is slowly driven mad by his

subconscious mind. When the police

show up at his house, they immediately go to the cellar and quickly

discover the body of the narrator's dead wife behind the wall. However, Poe

has thrown in a twist ending for the reader-the black cat is sitting on the

head of the dead woman which prompts the narrator to explain "I had walled

the monster up within the tomb!" (236).

Obviously, Poe was fascinated with the mysterious and the macabre and

knew quite a bit about human psychology. The narrator in "The Black Cat" is

certainly mentally disturbed which appears to be linked to his use of

alcohol. Throughout this story, there is a definite sense that the narrator

might be Poe himself, due to the fact that in his own life, the use of

alcohol led to many difficulties related to employment and being accepted

in certain social circles. However, the narrator in "The Black Cat" is

definitely unhinged, especially due to killing his wife in cold blood and

then burying her corpse… READ MORE

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