The Black Cat Unreliable

In the short horror story “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe; you follow the narrator who talks about “mere household events” in his life. It opens with the narrator telling a story form inside his jail cell. He talks about his love for animals ever since he was a small child. He talks about his love for a certain cat named Pluto. Him and his wife have a house filled with many different animals. He talks about how he abused all the animals except for Pluto but when he went our drinking one night, he cut out Pluto’s eye, later killing him. Therefore the narrator is not guilty under the reason of being insane. After finding a new cat similar to Pluto, he abuses it until his wife gets in the way who he then kills. In this story the narrator is unreliable because of the narrator’s mental state. Readers can predict the narrator is unreliable because his “mere household events” included stabbing and hanging a cat. He could not control his actions and urges to harm animals and then later, his wife. “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. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my

He becomes unstable and that results in him killing his wife. The story provides clues that he has always been insane such as he abused animals at an early age, which is a sign of being a psychopath. The narrator could not control his urges to hurt animals and people, thus causing him to have a psychotic break and kill his wife. He was also an alcoholic, which did not improve his condition but rather made him become more deranged. Some people may think he is guilty because he did have control of his anger and he felt guilt when he hurt his cat, Pluto. I think that the narrator did not regret when he hurt Pluto but felt ashamed that he had to hurt