Similarities Between The Black Cat And The Fall Of The House Of Usher

During the mid-1800s, the Transcendentalist movement emerged as the first unique style in American literature. The literature during this period heralded the beauty of nature and life while exploring the complexities of life. However, Dark Romanticism focused on gothic fiction and used the supernatural, grotesque, and irrational in literature. Edgar Allan Poe is renowned for his dark, macabre tales and poems that contain numerous gothic elements. Two of Poe’s most famous works include “The Black Cat” and “The Fall of the House of Usher”. While “The Black Cat” and “Usher” both use an unreliable narrator and a revenant to create an atmosphere of mystery and suspense, Poe’s use of an unreliable narrator is more effective in “The Black Cat” due to the narrator’s manic episodes and displays of insanity.
Poe’s use of an unreliable narrator in both “The Black Cat” and

In the short story, “The Black Cat”, the narrator suffers from alcoholism and turns toward violence against his cat, Pluto, and his wife. Following the burning of his house, the narrator’s madness heightens when he kills his wife and cat. After walling up the bodies, the narrator states how his “happiness was supreme” and that murdering his wife “disturbed [him] but little” (Poe). The narrator's lack of remorse or regret for his actions further underscores his instability and calls into question the truthfulness of his narrative. By creating a narrator whose grip on reality is tenuous at best, Poe establishes an atmosphere of tension and suspense that keeps readers on edge. Similarly, the narrator in “Usher” creates questions about the validity of the supernatural events that occur. During the night,