Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Black Cat explores the psychological trauma
of the main character, an unnamed narrator, who is going to be executed the
following day. As the story is being told in first person narrative technique,
it tries to persuade the readers to the great extent, visualizing the mere
household events and incidents narrated by the narrator as if real. The readers
feel the events happening in the story are real and the psychological trauma
that the narrator encounters is the natural one because the person who is going
to die the next day has no reason to tell a lie. The Black Cat begins with an unnamed narrator who
has been apprehended for murder and who insists that he cannot be insane before
he begins an account of a murder that he committed. There exists a man, in the
story, who is aware of the transformation in himself that has led him to become
a murderer, although he cannot totally explain it, and we even have a potential
cause for his insanity in the form of alcohol. The narrator of The Black Cat is on some level aware of his
unreasonableness, although he chooses to ignore it and succumb to the baser
human emotions of perversity and hatred.
One aspect of the narrator's personality that he
shares with several of Poe’s characters is that despite his overall lack of
normal ethics and good judgment, he uses some reason and logic to avoid
admissions of his mental abnormality. In particular, when he sees the image of
his cat on the one remaining wall of his house after it burns down, he tries to
ignore superstition and offer a reasonable, scientific explanation for its
existence. Ironically, the only superstitious member of his household is his
wife, who consistently shows a strong moral character despite the abuses and
deterioration of her husband. The contrast between the wife and husband in The Black Cat suggests that the difference between a
normal mind and an unhealthy one is that the unhealthy mind uses logic to
explain away what a normal mind would intuitively understand. Rather than
allowing himself to use his wits to recognize the possible significance of the
cat's image on the wall, he convinces himself of the scientific explanation in
order to forestall thinking about his guilt.
The supernatural elements of The Black Cat leave open the question of how much is
real, how much can be rationally explained, and how much is a product of the
narrator's imagination. Pluto's possible magical significance is first noted by
the wife, who states that black cats are said to be witches in disguise,
although her kind treatment of Pluto indicates that she does not put much faith
in this particular superstition. The narrator explicitly dismisses this
viewpoint, but the superstition flavors his entire story. When he observes the
image of the cat on the wall, he describes it as gigantic; he previously
described Pluto as fairly large, but whether the size of the image is an
expression of the paranormal or simply a product of his frightened imagination
is difficult to say. Similarly, the narrator claims that the patch of fur on
the cat transforms from an "indefinite splotch" to the specific image
of the gallows, but we have no evidence that the narrator is observing anything
more than the twisting of his own mind (Poe 108).
The narrator is consumed by guilt about what he has done. He does not seem to
fully realize the amount of his guilt, insisting that he is not bothered by what
he has done, but his guilt manifests in subconscious ways. He sees a vision of
a cat in a noose in the ruined remains of his burned down house. Guilt also
causes him to knock on the exact part of the wall that he buried his wife
behind, which causes the trapped cat to cry out and alert the cops to the
presence of the narrator's wife's corpse. If the narrator was not feeling
guilty about murdering his wife, he would have kept his cool when the police
were searching his house and possibly gotten away with her murder.
The narrator tries to convince the reader that the occurrences of every day
incidents lead to his fate, even when he stabs the cat (Pluto) in the eye. By
the time he kills the cat, the reader is beginning to
seriously suspect that what the narrator is saying is not entirely accurate. The narrator soon
becomes an unreliable voice; we discover he is in jail
waiting to be executed, but it is not until later that we realize he has
committed murder—something we may not be totally prepared for. This is another
‘swoop’ the plot takes as the narrator weaves his tale, even as he reports the
image of the cat hanging from a noose burned onto his house's wall (which the
author explains away) when he burns his own house.
The narrator brings a new black cat into his home.
This cat, he later finds, is also blind; the white patch on its chest begins to
resemble a gallows (in the narrator's mind), and the narrator is fearful of
hurting the cat. However, one night when he swings an ax at the feline, his
wife stops him, and he goes on to strike her head with the axe. This sudden action
will probably at last convince most readers that the narrator is deranged.
In finding a place to hide the body, the narrator seals his wife's corpse into
the wall of the basement. When the police finally arrive, the narrator (sure he
won't be caught) begins to brag about the sturdiness of the foundation, but
when he strikes the spot where the body is hidden, a sudden howl reverberates
through the cellar. Opening it, they find the body and the cat that the narrator had
mistakenly sealed into the cavity. Here is the final irony: the cat that is so
much like the murdered Pluto is the one who exposes the narrator as a murderer.
Perhaps we should be suspicious before we are. The narrator does all he can to
remove himself from any blame. He tries to blame a series of unfortunate
events, and later intoxication, for the actions that have led him to this
juncture. His seeming insanity is confusing as we try to follow his story as if
he were not at all demented. What we think we learn at the story's beginning is
very different than what we expect and discover at the end. The narrator's
disturbed mind makes it difficult to follow the tale. Our confusion is not an
accident: Poe has led us here. Clearly the most ironic element in The Black Cat is the Narrator's own “perversely
unrealistic and distorted view” of the horrible scenario that unfolds (DiYanni 132).
There are multiple transformations that occur in this
short story. The biggest one is the narrator's transformation via alcohol from
a family guy who loves his wife and pets to a moody maniac who cuts out his
cat's eye, hangs his cat, and eventually murders his wife. This transformation
is psychological and the result of the narrator's addiction to alcohol. Some of
the transformations in the story are physical. After his house burns down, the
narrator meets a cat that looks a lot like Pluto, except for the white mark on
the cat's chest. This mark shifts by almost imperceptible degrees. By the end
of the story it looks like a gallows, which suggests the subconscious guilt the
narrator is experiencing as a result of hanging Pluto and also hints to the
reader his own fate: death via hanging.
The Black Cat is a tale
that leaves the reader somewhat perplexed. It certainly contains all the
ingredients necessary to satisfy the appetite of any Poe enthusiast - an
enigmatic narrator, alcohol and the effects thereof, mutilation, strangulation,
murder, putrefaction, and, last but not least, one of Poe's slight (but
recurring) obsessions, perversity - but we are left wondering whether the tale
really amounts to anything much at all.
In The
Black Cat, the narrator
transforms from an amiable, animal-loving man with a loving wife. He
had described himself as a kind, gentle person previously. "From my
infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My
tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions”
(Poe 103). The reader sees a rapid deterioration in his domestic life and
disposition. He even admits to it ashamedly in the line: “I grew, day
by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others”
(Poe 104). He explains how he personally abused his wife and his lesser loved
animals until one day he finally assaults his beloved cat. What could
cause such a devastating and sinister change in a seemingly kind
gentleman? The narrator refers to his problem with consumption of alcohol as
a disease that he was struggling to deal with. In addition, he blames the ‘Imp
of Perverseness’ for his transgressions and violence due to his alcohol in
order to avert any responsibility from himself.
When the unruly, drunken narrator's habit gets out of
control, he turns into a violent, mean man who torments his most beloved pet
and adored wife. The effects of alcohol play an important role in the events of
the story which cause the narrator to become insane.
The beginning of , the narrator is confessing that he
is not mad, but needs to unburden my soul or come to terms with his life
thorough explaining his misdeeds . However, the nature in which he expresses
himself seems to claim otherwise in reference to his sanity, especially when
the story unfolds. He emphatically explains that happenings he deems mere
household events have frightened him and destroyed him to the point that he
cannot figure them out logically. He hopes that thorough his confession he may
find that someone will decipher what is happening to him.
Referencing back to his childhood, the narrator
explains his particular fondness and tenderness towards animals as a child.
This trait continued into his adulthood, and he found that animals often made
more faithful friends than other people did. Even his young wife enjoyed
animals as well and added many more pets to the household. One of the most
favored pets she brought into their domestic life was a black cat - Pluto. As
black cats are often noted in which lore, they are associated with “witchcraft,
dark magic, and thought to be harbingers of bad luck” (Womack n.p.).
The young wife of the narrator jokingly notes that the cat is unnaturally
intelligent and therefore could be a witch in disguise.
As the narrator's misuse of alcohol grows out of
control, he begins to mistreat his beloved animal like Pluto. The narrator uses
the vocabulary "disease" and "fiend temperament" to
note the severe nature of his alcoholism (Poe 105). And finally, it seems as if
he cannot control himself enough to even refrain from harming his peculiar yet
most beloved black cat Pluto. After a night out drinking, he comes home to find
that Pluto has avoided him which is in contrast to how he previously behaved,
when he would follow the narrator at all times out of affection. In a rage, the
narrator takes a pen-knife and cuts his eye right out from its socket. This is
all due to his inability to handle his alcohol abuse problem. Further
into the story, the narrator is transformed into paranoid, mean spirited person
due to his struggle with drinking. And, uncharacteristic to how he previously
was, he murdered both his beloved pet and his young wife on separate occasions.
His pet was lynched by him, yet somehow, another cat with white marking that
resembled gallows appeared. His wife was axed by the narrator after trying to
protect the cat from his wrath. The story concludes with his being taken by the
police, due to the yelp of a cat that had been entrapped with the dead wife's
body that the narrator hid. So, he finally gets punished for his misdeeds and
writes the story/ confession as he's about to get killed as punishment for his
crimes.
In summation, Alcohol made a monster of this
previously affectionate and animal loving husband. In a short span of time, he
has killed both of the things he enjoyed most in his life: his wife and his
pet. He blames the "Imp of Perverseness" instead of himself for the
deeds in which makes him question of his sanity. However, it is not his sanity
that needs questioning; it's his self-control with consumption of alcohol. He
makes no efforts to stop and therefore, pursues a violent life that affects his
two most beloved that in turn kills himself. In this way, Edgar Allan Poe’s
short story The Black Cat depicts the dark psyche of the character
who is corrupted psychologically because of being alcoholic.
Works
Cited
Diyanni, Robert. Literature:
Reading Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 6th ed. Hill Company: McGraw, 2008. Print.
Poe, Edgar Allan. Tales of Mystery and Imagination.
London: Harper Press, 2011. Print.
Womack, Martha. "Edgar Allan Poe's The
Black Cat." N.p., 1997.Web. 28 Nov. 2011.
