Megan Le 2/14/13 Pd.

Guilt is His Downfall In the short story The Black Cat, Edger Allen Poe uses the idea of guilt to slowly Disintegrate the narrators rational judgment and emotional control through his aggressive choices. The narrator is socially acceptable at the starting point of the story and is even said to be fond of animals with the tenderness of heart (Poe 1). At this point in time he had no guilt in his mind; he had done nothing wrong and had a reasonable life with his wife and many domestic animals. Being level headed, the narrator had friendships that lasted for years with his pets, especially a black cat named Pluto. But then as he got moody and irritated for no specific reason, he Grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket (3). Now, it is clear that he felt guilt when doing this because he mentions that it is a poor beast and has sympathy for Pluto. Events start unraveling and he became a different person. His guilt became over powering when he encounters another cat that reminded him of Pluto. This guilt bothered him so much that his judgment became clouded and he had no problem raising an axe to the cat, until his wife interfered and he then buried the axe in her brain (8). By the time this happened his guilt overcame him to the point he wasnt himself. He no longer had a tender heart and all he cared about was concealing the body of his wife. He became a murderer to animals and to a loved one. In the end, his undoing was so powerful that he hallucinated a dozen stout arms toiling at the wall and gore (11). The narrators inability to control his emotions leads to powerful guilt, which backfired, on him and others.