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The Black Cat Research Paper

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“The Black Cat”: Poe’s Romantic and Confession Tale Edgar Allan Poe is known as famous American writer, especially in writing mystery and macabre tales. “The Black Cat” is one of Poe’s great works. Though the tale contains a lots of horror scenes, it is not suitable to be considered as horror tale. The main thesis of the essay is romanticism, confession, tension between fabula and plot and five forms of evil to prove that the main content of the tale is romanticism and confession in Poe’s “The Black Cat”. To show that Poe’s “The Black Cat” is a romantic tale, First we need to know the background information for Romanticism. Romanticism is a kind of literature form in approximate period from 1780 to 1850. It emphasizes strong emotion, imagination …show more content…

There are five forms of evil in “The Black Cat” They are superstition, alcoholism, Christian myths of hell, the spirit of perverseness, and evil vocabulary. For superstition, the black cat can be the witch, and the witch represent the devil. This can be one reason of these unlucky and horror behaviors. Alcohol is another evil appeared in the tale. Alcohol is mentioned many times in “The Black Cat” and it is the cause of the killing the cat. The word fiend indicate that alcohol is sent by demon, and it makes the writer torture and kill for no reason. Christian myths of hell also show up in the tale to represent evil. For illustration, “demon instantly possessed me” and “fiendish malevolence” (Poe 852) mean devil take body while soul can survive. The following context morning and night represents brightness and darkness, and the transition from the darkness to brightness means from guilty to innocent. Another evil is the spirit of perverseness. Human’s nature can be violent and evil, and sometimes people will do wrong things like the author. This is the reason why we make confessions. Related to the humanity, and we expect people to forgive. Therefore, there are diverse types of confession after the writer commits a crime. The last evil is the naming style and the choice of the word. In the tale, the description becomes more and more unacceptable, and it becomes closer to the demon. The typical example is the second cat. Though the second cat is introduced as an ordinary cat, it brings disasters and become a symbol of guilty and punishment in the end of the tale. All five forms of evil should be confessed in the tale, and it is the reason why the evil is

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