The Role Of Alcoholism In Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat

250 Words1 Pages
In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat”, written in 1843, we see the downward spiral of the narrators acts and events, powered by his alcoholism, that ultimately lead him to kill his wife. These past events have the narrator feeling a sense of remorse for his actions. At first, the narrator describes himself as a person who loves animals along with his wife. His favourite pet was Pluto his black cat. However, alcohol had led the narrator to verbally abuse and threaten his wife and ultimately kill his cat, Pluto, by hanging it. The narrator observes another black cat at the bar, which resembles Pluto, and he grows an attachment to this cat, which ends up following him home. However, this second black cat reminds the narrator of Pluto,