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Examples Of Perverseness In The Black Cat

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“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe “I deliberately cut one of its eye’s from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder while I write about this damnable atrocity” (17). He had killed his beloved pet and now he is burden in this guilt. In this short “The Black Cat,” Edgar Allan Poe writes about the perverseness that everyone has inside, and how it takes over the main character. In the story, the narrator's perverseness gradually becomes worse which leads him to commit crimes. Before the crimes started, he was a drunk. Drinking alcohol can make people violent and mad, and will eventually lead a person to be filled with perverseness. Poe tells the story about a nameless narrator in a prison cell who has been sentenced to death because he murdered …show more content…

Simile is used to show how bad alcohol is to the narrator. The narrator became delirious from drinking and could care less about the crimes he committed. When the narrator started to drink, in the rising action of the story, he neglected and abused his pets and wife. He couldn’t stop drinking and was easily irritated. He declared “... there were no disease like alcoholism” (14). Within this quote, it stated that the narrator had already drank so much that it’s hurting himself. Most people underestimate the effects of alcohol, but alcohol is very addicting and it has a bad effect on one’s body. It can cause diseases like throat, mouth, and esophageal cancer. Poe uses simile to compare other subjects, but this particular simile explains that once you keep drinking alcohol, it's hard to revert back to the person you were before. Just like a disease, it will take a while to heal. When the narrator never tried to quit drinking, he went deeper into perversity. The next simile shows a comparison between Pluto and another black cat. The narrator believes the black cat is Pluto’s soul and it wants revenge. In the rising action, the narrator was drinking at the tavern when he noticed a black cat. He was looking for a cat like Pluto to cherish for because the guilt he felt was overwhelming. The cat was “...easily as large as Pluto and looked like him in every way…”, (38) though the cat did have a white patch. This simile shows that the cat was very similar to Pluto, but the narrator assumes that it’s Pluto’s soul inside another cat. In reality, it’s a normal cat that looks like Pluto by coincidence. This cat is very much innocent like Pluto, but the narrator soon, dislikes the cat because of how affectionate the cat was. When he sees the missing eye the next day, he believed it was a “brute beast - like the one I

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Even when the narrator was drunk and addicted to alcohol, he tries his best not to mistreat Pluto. It seems the reason why he does this is because of the way Pluto treats him. The storyteller is finally able to have company from an animal who cares and adores about him.

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In Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Black Cat," the narrator becomes increasingly insane and violent, leading to the abuse and eventual murder of his wife and his beloved pet cat, Pluto. The narrator, who is an alcoholic, mistreats everyone emotionally. While in his drunken state, he started to take his anger out on his cat and wife. He grabbed the cat and cut an eye out and then hung the cat from a tree. There was a fire at the house and when he returned, the narrator saw the cat’s shadow on the remaining wall.

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The narrator observes another black cat at the bar, which resembles Pluto, and he grows an attachment to this cat, which ends up following him home. However, this second black cat reminds the narrator of Pluto,

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knew!--they were making a mockery of my horror!” (Poe, “Heart” 8) and eventually reveal the murder. Likewise, after killing his cat the narrator in “The Black Cat” “could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat” (Poe

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420 Words | 2 Pages

“The Black Cat” written by Edgar Allan Poe, is the story of a man who narrates how his life fell apart because of his alcoholism and a cat. At the beginning of the story the narrator explains that he was especially fond of animals. He and his wife had a lot of pets, but his favourite one was Pluto, his playmate black cat. When the man started drinking, he experienced a change in his temper. He abused physically and verbally of his wife and pets.

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The narrator sees a cat that resembles Pluto as the cat “was a black cat – a very large one – fully as large as Pluto and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but [the] cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white covering nearly the whole region of the beast”. This is showing that the owner is getting this sense of remorse towards his original companion which he committed a deadly sin. This is also showing that the owner is far from being himself and finally has become insane as right after Pluto’s death that another cat that resembles Pluto shows up and the cat is calm towards In Conclusion the owner goes through so many various behaviors that control his actions towards the animals and people around him that it makes him seem he is only hurting himself.

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1306 Words | 6 Pages

After he attacks his cat, the cat begins to avoid the narrator. Though he recognizes the reason why his cat is scared of him, he says,” I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation.” (Poe, 273). As his cat ignores him more, the narrator gets more frustrated which leads him to kill the cat and eventually his wife.

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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

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Poe realizes as he is drinking he becomes more attached to the bottle and cannot take control. He loses his life and who he is. His mind becomes fragile and lost. Poe becomes ill-tempered and uncontrollably disrespectful. “Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character—through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance—had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse.”

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A theme expressed in “The Black Cat” is how guilt can manifest itself in subconscious ways. This was demonstrated throughout the story, with the narrator drinking his sorrows away and sheltering a cat resembling the one he murdered. Shortly after the narrator murdered Pluto, his first cat, he consumed excess alcohol to drown his sorrows and rid his memory of the once beloved pet he murdered. “I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.” (Page 2)

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In the short story, “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, the idea of whether the narrator is insane or sane is questioned. The narrator develops a drinking problem and becomes violent. He harms his cat, and then once it is healed, he murders it. Shortly thereafter, he and his wife find a new cat, similar to his old one. He grows to despise this new cat, which leads him to attempting to kill it.

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"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe is a captivating and chilling short story that delves into the depths of human madness and the haunting power of guilt. First published in 1843, Poe's masterful storytelling and psychological insight have made this tale a timeless classic of Gothic literature. The story is narrated by an unnamed protagonist who, right from the beginning, declares his sanity despite the heinous act he is about to confess. The narrator obsessively recounts the events leading up to the murder of an old man with a "vulture eye," with the tale delving deep into the twisted workings of his mind.

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514 Words | 3 Pages

In the beginning part of the story, the narrator tells about his life before he began drinking. At an early age the narrator had a loving relationship with animals. This adds to the irony of the story because later in the story he murders a cat and is haunted and becomes afraid of another cat. On page two, the narrator says, “One night, returning home, much intoxicated from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence”.

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1064 Words | 5 Pages

Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat” is an iconic short story of a man who struggles with mental illness and through Poe’s use of an unreliable narrator, the subliminal psychological and biographic approach is strongly reflected in this work. Due to Poe being a man that faced numerous struggles in his life, his writing pieces reflect his own life through the narrator’s actions. “The Black Cat” authored by the pivotal gothic author, Edgar Allan Poe, is a short story in which the author subconsciously associates himself as the narrator both from his own hardships from various life events, as well as his struggle with addiction and mental illness. The author, born Edgar Poe, became orphaned as only a young toddler when both his mother

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826 Words | 4 Pages

A new cat showed up and, the narrator shortly started to resent this cat because he was a lot like Pluto. “ I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly let me confess it at once by absolute dread of the beast” (Poe.9). This shows how he dreads the cat being around him, but he withheld from doing anything to it because he was haunted by the memory of what he did to Pluto. The narrator is trying not to go mad and do bad things, so he is fighting himself internally to do so.

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