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Personification In The Black Cat

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ad Luck Of The Black Cat Have you ever listened to that little voice inside yourself that is telling you to go down the path of no return? In “The Black Cat” the narrator is sentenced to death, however before he is executed he explains the reasons how he was caught. Edgar Allan Poe uses symbolism, irony, and personification to blame the little voice inside his head for the poor choices he knowingly made. This glimpse inside his head will help us to understand the narrator’s thoughts about what he perceives as real and and what is not . He uses symbolism for his relationship with his wife and cat, irony when he finally gets caught by police and personification when he describes his cat as a beast that is trying to get him..him to be abusive to his animal and ultimately lead him to kill his own wife. The Substance abuse causes Poe’s relationship with his wife and cat to deteriorate and his mind to go wild. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities. Edgar Allan Poe uses symbolism to convey the narrator's struggle with alcohol. He compares the alcohol and his cats relationship and how they both began as healthy relationships, however over time he began to abuse alcohol which lead to the abuse and obsession with his cat that eventually lead to both the narrators and the cats death. This can be seen …show more content…

In “The Black Cat”, it is use to emphasizes Edgar Allan Poe's internal struggle. He names his cat “Pluto- this was the cat’s name -was my favorite pet and playmate.” The name Pluto refers to the greek god of the underworld (Hell), again Poe gives his second cat human traits. He additionally personifies his cat stating, “mainly I was prevented let me confess that once-by my deep dread of the beast.”, in reference to his inner struggle, Poe calls the cat a beast (half human half animal). By giving human traits that are not human he trs to justify the poor choices he has

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When an author uses symbolism, a dove can symbolize peace, and a black bird can be the picture of death. Symbolism is the use of symbols to represent ideas or qualities in a story through motions, words and objects. It evokes a spark in the reader to give them an opportunity to get an insight of the writer’s mind and how they view the world. Symbolism works together with other writing tools to create a deeper meaning in a story like Sonny’s Blues by James Baldwin. Baldwin created a big picture with little symbols that he worked in throughout his story.

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Symbolism allows the author to create a story that would otherwise be bland and monotone. Without this dark romantic element, books, short stories, and poems would not have as much meaning nor appealing detail. Symbolism in "The Raven," "The Devil and Tom Walker," and "The Minister's Black Veil," creates layers of meaning and interesting characters. Symbolism has been used for centuries to spice up the literary world. Sometimes it is used in obvious ways, but other time it has to be thoroughly studied to be imperturbably understood.

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Symbolism is the use of symbols to portray something else in the story. The Great Gatsby uses this device very often. An example of this would be, "Involuntarily I glanced seaward-- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. " The green light, in this case, represents a better life and/or Daisy. Gatsby is the one looking toward the green light, which is "minute and far away" to say that he craves it, but it's just out of his grasp.

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The author increases the feeling of anxiety in the story by using foreshadowing. For example, after the narrator obtains the second black cat, he notices that the white patch on the second cat’s chest is forming into something. When the narrator realizes what the shape of the patch on the beast chest is, he states, “It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to have—and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared—it was how, I say, the image of a hideous—of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!” (Poe 4)

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Next, Poe develops suspense in the black cat through the hanging of Pluto. The narrator is unbalanced and insane, yet hangs Pluto with full intent by the limb of a tree. The narrator states, Quote 1 “hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes with the bitterest remorse at my heart” (Poe 2). The violence that the narrator displays with the hanging of Pluto enroots anxiety for the perusal to know.

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In these two stories Poe uses foreshadowing in way that if the reader spots the small details or Poes “word playing “ he/she can predict what will happen or get a hint of what will happen. In Black Cat there are few foreshadows. One foreshadow is when the narrator sees a cat in the wall and Pluto`s color being black is believed to be unlucky and in this story the narrator is unhappy and unlucky. The narrator gets gouth because of a cat being inside a wall.

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Also, when reading “ The Black Cat”, Poe will not keep the reader up-to-date with the natural world. He likes to keep his readers guessing. This alone makes the narrator unreliable. When the Black Cat came back after the narrator killed it, both he and the reader were very shocked.

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“Symbolism is the use of symbols to signify ideas and qualities by giving them symbolic meanings that are different from their literal sense.” Symbols can add a deeper meaning than just an object itself that the author is trying to make. Symbols can also foreshadow what is yet to come. The audience can interpret a symbol in many ways it depends on their experience. In Southside Chicago the Younger family is struggling to have hope as they are always facing society.

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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

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Poe uses symbolism to add additional connections to outside sources, like the use of mythology in The Black Cat. In the poem, the reading narrator jolted when he heard a knock on his door and went to check it, only to find his threshold empty; however, the knock sounds again and when he checks it, a Raven entered his room and “perched upon a bust of Pallas” (Poe 2). The mention of Pallas relates to the Greek goddess of wisdom, Athena, and continues throughout the poem to make other allusions to Greek mythology. But the Raven itself symbolizes the grief that the narrator felt for his lost loved one, Lenore, and the fowl resting on the bust of the goddess of wisdom might symbolize that if the narrator would acknowledge his grief, he could move forward to overcome it. When the Raven entered his room, the narrator, though surprised, began to talk to it, not expecting any response.

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In the gruesome short story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe a nameless narrator tells his story of his drunken and moody life before he gets hung the next day. The intoxicated narrator kills his favorite cat, Pluto and his wife with an axe. Soon enough, the narrator gets caught and there he ends up, in jail. Although, most readers of “The Black Cat” have argued the narrators insanity, more evidence have shown that he is just a moody alcoholic with a lousy temper.

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Edgar Allan Poe addresses the dark and gruesome side of human nature in his writing “The Black Cat”, which during that time and even now are perceived as radical ideas. This dark human nature is displayed in Poe’s writing as the narrator recalls the happenings of a most erratic event. The narrator, a pet lover with a sweet disposition, in this story succumbs to the most challenging aspects of human nature including that of addiction, anger, and perverseness. To the Christian believer, human’s sinful flesh leads people to do wrong because that is their natural tendency.

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Another example of symbolism is, “Putting on a mask of black silk and drawing a cloak closely about my person” (pg. 2). The black silk represents the darkness and horrid effect of this story. It also adds mystery to the mood. Poe also uses vivid sensory details to craft his

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