Addiction In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

Addiction is defined as compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (such as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal; broadly : persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful. And to further explain it means you cannot stop doing something even if it may be hurting your self and others. In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story The Black Cat the narrator is about to receive the death penalty and he is telling his story. When he was young he loved animals which led to having a lot of pets, He had one pet which he loved best a black cat named Pluto. One night he had come home from the bar drunk and Pluto was trying to avoid him and he

In Poe’s Black cat the narrator's addiction to alcohol hurt many physically and mentally. “But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper. One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. 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. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!” (Poe 1) Similarly in dahl’s The Landlady The landlady portrays that she is a sweet old lady but that changes when she says ““That parrot,” he said at last. “You know something? It had me completely fooled when I first saw it through the window from the street. I could have sworn it was alive.” ... “It’s most terribly clever the way it’s been done,” he said. “It doesn’t look in the least bit dead. Who did it?” “I did.” “You did?” “Of course,” she said... “I stuff all my little pets myself when

In poe’s The Black cat he shows characterization at the beginning of the story “When I was a child I had a natural goodness of Soul which led me to love animals” This shows characterization because it is describing what he was like when he was young. It is sharpening the theme because it is explaining what he was like before his addiction got the best of him. An Example of characterization in Dahl’s The landlady is when the are sitting together and talking “He noticed that she had small, white, quickly moving hands, and red finger-nails.” this chows characterization because it is describing what she looks like. This sharpens the theme because it is characterizing the landlady at the beginning and how it