Alcoholism In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is an author known for his mysterious and dark tones in writing and “The Black Cat” is no exception. It is not unusual for Poe’s characters to be experiencing some type of nervous breakdown or thoughts that point toward a mental illness, which Poe himself struggled greatly with, as well as with alcoholism. “The Black Cat '' specifically is centered around a character and his experience with alcoholism. The narrator takes the reader through what he claims is his version of the murder of his wife and cat, which he himself committed. In Edgar Allan Poe's “The Black Cat” the narrator's alcoholism and horrific actions fuel his eventual break of madness as he attempts to garner sympathy from the reader and manipulate them with his

This is important because he proceeds to use it almost as if it is an excuse for his actions and as an attempt to gain sympathy from his audience. He explains removing the eye of his first cat, how he got home severely intoxicated and feeling as if “the fury of a demon” possessed him after the cat scratched him on the hand. Even after harming the cat in such a horrid way, the narrator could not handle the weight of the cat he blamed for all of his problems. He took it upon himself to hang the cat and hung it. Despite having no reason, he still searched for sympathy from the reader with guilt and immediately followed the death of his cat with the story of his house burning down. As written in “Fear and Trembling in Literature of the Fantastic: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’”, “the narrator is obsessively concerned with both activities: he hopes for understanding from his listeners and energetically pursues approval by employing the various manipulative tools of the storyteller” (Badenhausen). The narrator uses several manipulative tactics as he tries to garner sympathy from the reader and defend his actions with his