Bailey Suwinski Mr. Arthurs Honors English 10 2/9/2023 PR: Poe Compare and Contrast Edgar Allen Poe is regarded as one of the founding authors of Gothic literature, writing many wonderful and twisted poems. Poe was a very antisocial person that practically cut himself off from the world; his lifestyle was often reflected in his poems and was prominent in both “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Black Cat”. While both “The Fall of the House of Usher” and “The Black Cat” have similar themes of entrapment, creating a sense of suspense and foreshadowing, they differ in their use of an unreliable narrator. In “The Fall of the House of Usher” the narrator tries to bring attention to the supernatural occurrences happening in the house. …show more content…
The narrator says that he will be telling a story of “mere household events” (Poe 1). The narrator begins by undermining the events he caused. However, the narrator's actions are anything but sane. The narrator was a happy and normal kid fond of animals but was corrupted through alcohol and continued to get corrupted. The narrator had a cat he named Pluto, who he fed and cared for alone. However, alcohol made the narrator more moody, irritable, and regardless of others feelings. Alcohol caused the narrator to mistreat Pluto, which made Pluto avoid the narrator. The narrator took the cat and cut out its eye in anger. Pluto avoided the narrator even more but was caught again and “[hanged] [Pluto] to the limb of a tree” (Poe 2). The narrator tried justifying hanging his cat and believed he had committed no offense. Furthermore, the narrator adopted another cat that he found in a strange place. The new cat had a faint apparition of a gallow on its belly that the narrator dismissed as something supernatural. The narrator, overtime, became fearful of the new cat as the apparition of a gallow became more distinct, and in the house's cellar he used an ax to kill the cat. Though, it was stopped by the narrator’s wife, who he then brutally murdered. After he buried his wife in the cellar walls, the cat was nowhere to be found. Furthermore, the police came to find the reason for the narrator’s wife's disappearance. In a calm manner, the swooning narrator leads the police to the cellar and purposefully as if wanting to get caught tapped on the part of the cellar walls where he buried his wife. Silence came, but then an “ inhuman howl” (Poe 5) echoed across the cellar. The wall was torn down, which revealed his dead wife and cat that he mistakenly entrapped. He was then hastily arrested and sent to prison where he wrote the poem “The Black