The Black Cat Unreliable Narrator

When reading a novel, the view limits itself to that of the narrator's, provided by the author. This narrator provides the reader with the only source of information relevant to the story and its plot. However, when the narrator's mindset undergoes some type of alteration due to drugs or a mental deficiency, the information no longer presents itself as being reliable. In multiple short stories written by Edgar Allan Poe, he takes the idea of the unreliable narrator and uses it to create a portrayal of madness and terror. Therefore, one can see that Poe uses narrative voice as a tool to create intricate stories of horror, madness and terror with the unreliable first person narrator. Poe emphasizes the idea of the unreliable first person narrative within sentences of

The narrative accounts a tale of his from many years ago, regarding his life with his family and his cat. He describes how his life undergoes change due to the result of alcohol and this emphasizes on the unreliability of his tale. In the beginning quote of the story, the narrator says, "For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief." (pg. 19). This shows that even though he tells this story to the reader, he does not expect belief from it, which creates doubt within the water. The fact that the narrator drinks as well emphasized on this and as a result, allows Poe to create wild events in the story. The author then recounts how he goes home drunk one day, where his cat then annoys him and he stabs its eye out, along with hanging it from a tree. The same night, his house burns down to the ground with police later finding the narrators wife buried in the basement with the cat on her. This description of crazy events shows that Poe's use of the unreliable first person narrator allows him to go on the broad aspect of crazy events in his