Perverseness In The Black Cat

1) Throughout the story of “The Black Cat” the word perverseness is mentioned a great deal of times. The word Perverseness means wicked, but what Poe is trying to come across is something different since Poe chooses to include the word Perverseness before Pluto's death. For the narrator perverseness means that it’s good to do the bad thing sometimes because it’s something that we as humans do normally, Poe mentions this aswell that “Perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart”(2).Also, when the man takes Pluto’s eye out, the man notices that the cat doesn’t like him and is frighten of the man. This causes the man to be “Grieved” or sad because of the dislike that the cat has for him and the “Spirit of perverseness...which

It got worse every other day and since he sees the Pluto is getting old. In addition, Pluto is feeling the temper that the man has and one day Pluto ignores the man’s presence and bites him. Furthermore, this is when the relationship between Pluto and the man changes and it seems that both hate each other considering that the man pokes Pluto’s eye out with a knife and hangs him. The second black cat that the men encounters looks and acted like Pluto. Immediately, the 2nd cat accompanies the man and so does he but then the cat likes the wife more. The man dislikes the cat feelings of disgust and annoyance rises in him which causes him to hate the cat. The purpose that Poe chooses to use two different situation that leads to the same reaction is because it shows that no matter what situation that the man experiences, his spirit of perverseness is strong that it makes him immediately result to violence. This is shown when the man says “Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me [succumb]. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates”(5). All the man thought about is evilness and that is why he wants to kill both cats. Another purpose for there to be 2 cats is because the second cat looks almost alike Pluto, meaning the second cat might be Pluto taunting the man for killing him and at the end when the man sees the cat again it mentions “Seduc[e] me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman”(7). This shows that the cat recognizes the man as a hangman because he hangs Pluto and the cat causes the man to kill his