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Literary analysis essay of black cat
Analysis of the black cat story
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The cat Pluto was just being it’s own normal self like any other cat but he scratched the narrator and the injustice narrator decided its punishment should be death by hanging from a tree in his property. Erin Morgenstern tells revenge by a conversation with the man in the grey suit and Hector. As the Circus goes on the man in the grey suit approaches Hector and states “An innocent man died here tonight” (Morgenstern 383). Which is true and very wicked for a circus that did not start that way. Things have gotten way out of hand and innocent people are dying left and right, but the show must go on and that is indeed what it does.
[Eventually when] the cat followed me [the main character]…, [it] exasperated me [him] to madness. I [he attempted to] aim a blow [with an axe] at the animal… Goaded, by the interference [of his wife], into a rage more than demoniacal, I [he] withdrew my [his] arm from her [his wife’s] grasp and buried the axe in her [narrator’s wife’s] brain (Poe, page 4).” Because the narrator was annoyed and infuriated, he kills his wife, as well, for interfering with his plan to kill the second cat they adopted; thus this shows the main character’s corrupted and malicious mind. The former joyful, generous man sprouts into an evil and a criminal, who murders Pluto, his cat, and his wife.
This does not last and in a night of drunken stupor the protagonist maims Pluto, cutting one of his eyes out. In recounting the deed, the narrator himself states, “I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.” The narrators following descriptions of “the poor beast,” contain within them a tone of shame, and in turn illustrate a man ravaged by
Early into the story the wife makes frequent allusion, “all black cats are witches in disguise” (Poe 1), which is a popular ancient notation. This tells the reader that they should be suspicious of Pluto because he could possibly be a witch. When the narrator introduces Pluto to the reader he writes “Pluto—this was the cats name” (Poe 1). In Roman mythology Pluto is the god of the underworld.
The story continues with an event that is unfortunately far more terrible and unexpected than the previous events. The narrator allows his increasing anger towards the second black cat to lead him to killing his wife. His temper and hatred that began with the second black cat eventually ended up impacted him and his wife. The narrator states, “I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan” (Poe 5).
The Black Cat is a short story that shares a tale of a man and his cat, Pluto. The man was once kind and loved animals, but due to a large intake of alcohol, he becomes aggressive towards not only his wife, but Pluto as well. The narrator explains his change of heart by saying, “I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.”
The narrator becomes increasingly fixated on the wallpaper, ultimately seeing a woman trapped behind it. This fixation represents her own confinement and the breakdown of her mental state. Similarly, in "The Black Cat," the narrator becomes increasingly consumed by guilt and addiction, leading to his own confinement in a self-imposed prison of his own guilt and fear. The black cat serves as a physical manifestation of his guilt and addiction, a constant reminder of his inner turmoil and confinement.
The narrator got another cat after this and became even more insane in the way he felt about this black cat.
The Black Cat is written by Edgar Allan Poe, who has written much in the past. He was always questioned about how reliable his stories were in the past, but in this story it brings major attention to the reasons why. In the story the narrator states “…a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified - have tortured - have destroyed me.” In that quote it shows that his past life affected his actions that took place in The Black Cat.
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
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.
His alcoholism causes him to be abusive and eventually leads him cutting Pluto’s eye out and hanging him. The same night of Pluto’s hanging, the man’s house burns down, where he sees the impression of a giant cat with a noose around his neck on one of the walls of the burnt house. Eventually he gets another black cat with some white fur. He starts to hate this cat, so he also kills it.
It is also an unusual situation, because in the story, after he hanged the cat and went to sleep, his house suddenly burns out of nowhere (“I was aroused…” | Paragraph 10), and the members of the household, including the man, successfully escaped, and pluto, the cat he hanged, has resurrected into another black cat (“It was a black
The narrator is confined to his path of madness and drunkenness. The narrator’s irritation gets worse, and he attempts to kill the new cat. His wife interjects, and the narrator kills his wife in anger. He chooses to hide his wife’s body in the walls of the cellar.
“Pluto – this was the cat’s name – was my favorite pet and playmate” (Poe 520). This man is more violent and he hangs and burns that cat he adored. The narrator is not so lucky though, because another black cat follows and haunts him on his way home. This cat also drives him crazy and he tries to kill the cat but ends up killing his wife instead. The narrator buries his wife in the wall and when the police come looking for her body, the cat helps them find her corpse.