Edgar Allan Poe - American poet, writer, and editor-, is well-known for his gothic

horror tales and he is a centered figure of Romanticism in the United States. Due to his tragic

childhood, where his father abandoned him, and his mother died, many of his works carries

that tragedy. Poe’s one of the most famous short stories “The Black Cat” is Poe’s second work

where he focuses on psychological study of violence. Poe uses terror and moral corruption in

order to explore a mind of an alcoholic murderer.

The story begins with the narrator’s childhood. It is stated that the narrator was a

loving child who cares about others and was fond of animals. The story expresses it as “I was

especially fond of animals and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets.” The

narrator used to spend most of his time caressing and feeding the animals. In his manhood, we

can see that he is still a loving character who cares about others and animals. He marries a

woman who is just like him, has an extreme love towards domestic pets. The narrator talks

about the pets they had, including birds, a goldfish, a dog, and a cat. He explains the beauty of

the cat and compliments the how intelligence it is. He names the cat Pluto, feeds him, and

spends most of his time with him. However, after several years, the narrator begins to grow

more moody and more reckless about the feelings of others.

As the story goes on, the narrator becomes an alcoholic, which mirrors Poe’s life. After

the dramatic change of his character, he uses inappropriate language to his wife, engages in

violence towards his wife and pets. At first, Pluto was exempt from all the violence the

narrator shows, that we can understand how much he cares for it. However, accumulated

violence within him comes out eventually. One night, when the narrator is intoxicated, Pluto

avoids him. The narrator loses himself, driven into madness. “I knew myself no longer. My
original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish

malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame.” He takes a penknife, grasps

Pluto by throat, and with such enthusiasm, he cuts one of Pluto’s eyes, the pet he cares about

the most. The morning, when he comes to his senses, he experiences half of horror and half of

remorse. However, he doesn’t feel guilty enough to have his soul shattered. As the story

proceeds, the cat recovers, and is no longer in pain, but avoids the narrator with terror. He is

in grieve at first, he still can feel as his old self. After a while, the feeling of sadness replaces

itself with annoyance. One morning, he snaps and hangs his cat to a tree. He cries of guilt,

which he tries to justify by blaming Pluto of his actions. His actions are moral because Pluto

changed its behavior towards him, because he felt anger, because Pluto loved him, and

because it is the nature of man.

After the turning point of the story, his house burns down, which we can understand as

a symbol of his morals and sanity. He visits his old home, which was eaten by flames, and

sees a wall still standing. He approaches the wall just to see a figure of a cat with a rope

lapped its neck. He feels terror as its extremes, and even though he tries the reason the

situation, he cannot help but to feel guilt. For months, he tries to get rid of the feeling. In order

to do that, he adopts a new cat, which almost looks like Pluto. He feels like he found what he

was looking for all this time. The cat immediately bounds with his wife; however, his

satisfaction does not till long. He begins to feel disgusted and annoyed. He avoids the cat,

remembering of his previous actions. However, his anger and moodiness kept grow day by

day when he sees the cat. One day, he decides to end this and uplifts his axe, forgetting how

he used to be as a child, how he cared and loved animals. Just before he acts, his wife

prevents him to do so. He feels an extreme rage, and without a doubt, he buries the axe into

her brain which causes her to die in the scene. It can be inferred from that scene he feels an
extreme rage towards his old caring self, represented as his wife, and kills it without o a

doubt, which means he is no longer himself. In this scene, reader, again, have a chance to read

into the narrator’s mind, reading how he tries to plan every possible outcome. He considers

‘the best option’ to get away with what he had just done, without a guilt, he covers it up. Then

he begins to look for the cat, the creature that caused all of this, but the cat is no longer is to

be seen. After four days, police investigation begins, but the narrator still does not feel any

embarrassment while the police search the house. Even though he could get away with it, he

desperately wants to prove his guiltlessness, and ends up confessing.

In the short story, the readers are given a chance to read into a mind of alcoholic

murderer. The story explores violence, horror, and psychological aspects of the narrator, how

he loses his sanity slowly. It can be seen that the short story “The Black Cat” mirrors Poe’s

life and thoughts, using metaphors and symbols.