The narrator was an alcoholic. He became violent when he was intoxicated. One day when he was under the influence, and grabbed the frightened cat, and the cat retaliated and bit him. The narrator became furious with the cat and he grabbed a pen-knife and cut out one of its eyes. When he did this, the narrator felt sudden regret and guilt.
The escape from alcohol is more destructive than what they are escaping from. Both stories “The Black Cat,” and “The Cask of Amontillado” are written by the famous poet, Edgar Allan Poe. “The Black Cat” is about an alcoholic man who recounts his descent into madness. The man had a cat named Pluto, however, the cat upset him and thus he gouged his eye out and hung him. Later on, another black cat appears in his life.
The story continues with an event that is unfortunately far more terrible and unexpected than the previous events. The narrator allows his increasing anger towards the second black cat to lead him to killing his wife. His temper and hatred that began with the second black cat eventually ended up impacted him and his wife. The narrator states, “I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan” (Poe 5).
Insanity is a common theme throughout Edgar Allen Poe’s body of work. Though it creates interesting characters and situations, it also makes us wonder how much of the story that the narrator is telling us is actually true. In The_Black_Cat, William_Wilson, and The_Raven, the narrators seem to be speaking the truth that they believe. However the narrator -in each story- also appears to get a few details wrong, most likely because of their unwell state.
In “The Black Cat” the narrator was an alcoholic. He
“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe illustrates a young man who slowly descends into insanity. He starts by harming his beloved cat and ends up killing the animal. When he meets another cat with similar
In Edgar Allen Poe’s chilling short story, “The Black Cat,” the unnamed narrator sinks into madness fueled by his increasing consumption of alcohol and his growing dependence. At first the
Alcohol harms the alcoholic mentally and physically, however it also harms them socially by causing relationship problems. The addiction and effects of alcohol can lead to relationship breakups. In “The Black Cat” the narrator abuses his beloved pets and wife because alcohol had made him more irritated and violent. When the effects of alcohol began to take its hold on the narrator, he started “to use intemperate language to [his] wife. At length, [he] even offered her personal violence.
The narrator got another cat after this and became even more insane in the way he felt about this black cat.
Approaching the final of his days, Poe began to fall into depression and craziness because of Virginia passing away. He drank more and more frequently and heavily. The stories that he published in the last years of his life often had an alcoholic character. In Particular, “The Black Cat” which was published in 1845, 4 years before Poe died in 1849. In the story, the narrator gets aggressive and hurts his cat while he is extremely intoxicated.
“Pluto – this was the cat’s name – was my favorite pet and playmate” (Poe 520). This man is more violent and he hangs and burns that cat he adored. The narrator is not so lucky though, because another black cat follows and haunts him on his way home. This cat also drives him crazy and he tries to kill the cat but ends up killing his wife instead. The narrator buries his wife in the wall and when the police come looking for her body, the cat helps them find her corpse.
The narrator is confined to his path of madness and drunkenness. The narrator’s irritation gets worse, and he attempts to kill the new cat. His wife interjects, and the narrator kills his wife in anger. He chooses to hide his wife’s body in the walls of the cellar.
The narrator of “The Black Cat” is an alcoholic. By mistreating his pets and wife, he demonstrates how his addiction affects him. Alcoholism itself is an act of insanity because alcoholics see things in an entirely different manner than sober people. The narrator had a sufficient childhood and had a great deal of pets. Once he grew addicted
Edgar Allan Poe is best known for his ominous tone and attraction to gloomy themes in his works. Many of his works surround the circumstances of the death of a beautiful woman, such as “Ligeia,” “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Black Cat.” This was a very personal topic for Poe, as he lost most all the women he loved including both his biological and adoptive mothers and his wife. This gave him inspiration for many of his works and fueled his fascination with human mortality. Poe’s mother died at the young age of 24, when Poe was only three years old.
During the story “The Black Cat” the narrator goes through a series of personality changes going from, a kind gentle man who loves animals to a cold blooded murder. The narrator develops some sort of insane characteristic trait throughout the story. In the beginning of the story the narrator tries to contradict himself and he say that he is not mental ill, but the reader is able to understand that the narrator is lying. This character can be described as abusive and evil. An example of the narrator being violent is when he cuts the cat, Pluto’s eye out with a pocket knife.
