Similarities Between Young Goodman Brown And The Black Cat

Gothic literature is a strange combination of horror and romance that has lead to some of the most fascinating and disturbing stories ever written. Two American authors, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Edgar Allen Poe expanded the boundaries of this dark genre with works that exemplify and define it. Two such stories are “Young Goodman Brown” by Hawthorne and “The Black Cat” by Poe. Hawthorne and Poe became acclaimed examples of gothic literature through their dark descriptions of places, the supernatural, and their hero’s decay into madness. At times, their writing, particularly Hawthorne, blended elements of romanticism with gothic writing. Gothic literature gives off the atmosphere of fear and dread. As described in a journal article,

It is also a linking element between gothicism and romanticism as both genres commonly have supernatural elements. An example of the supernatural in “The Black Cat” is the narrator’s cat, Pluto. The cat is seen repeatedly throughout the text as he represents the narrator’s fears and anxieties. The supernatural phenomenon of witches was immediately mentioned when first describing Pluto as the short story explains,”In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise” (Giordano). Though the narrator immediately denies this superstitious idea about the cat saying,”Not that she was ever serious upon this point -- and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered” (Giordano). However, after he hangs Pluto, his house catches on fire the next day, and when he sees the fire he describes it as,”...the figure of a gigantic cat...There was a rope about the animal’s neck”(Giordano). This vision conveys the “otherworldly” and mysterious sense of the story, as it seems that Pluto is haunting the narrator. After the narrator murders Pluto, he decides to get another cat. Pluto is represented in this new cat as the narrator says,”...but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast” and “It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name...it was now, I say, the image of a hideous -- of a ghastly thing -- of the Gallows” (Giordano)! To add into this creepiness, his new cat was missing an eye just as Pluto was, explaining that,”...like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes”