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The Struggle With Alcoholism In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

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Recommended: Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's Black Cat

A man and his feline companion A struggling alcoholic’s love for his cat. The Black Cat is a twisted short story that brings the reader through a chaotic recollection of the narrator’s past. Word choice sets the tone early on in this story giving it chaotic sense of the narrator’s distorted thought process. The narrator recounts his experiences with “The black Cat” however he fails to realize that it is a mere figment of his imagination. “The Black Cat” our narrator see’s is in reality a symbolism for his struggle with alcohol. However what really gives the reader a sense of emersion into the narrator’s mind is a deranged first person recollection of how he suffers from alcoholism and how it destroys his life. A person perspective is …show more content…

The narrator use’s a first person perspective to give readers incite into the thought process that is present throughout his recollection of events. Without a first person perspective readers would not see “The Black Cat” through the eyes of the narrator. It’s important to see “The Black Cat” through the narrator’s eyes as it demonstrates the internal conflict that is present. The Narrator describes how the cat follows him everywhere and how it is difficult to stop it from following him in the streets. This is powerful because through the eyes of the narrator he has come to terms with the fact that he struggles from alcoholism. Readers are forced to see how alcoholism is ruining the narrator’s life. A gruesome climax plunges readers into the demonic murder of the narrator’s life proving just how bad the narrator’s alcoholism has become. Without the first person perspective the murder of his wife would have appeared less symbolic of the extreme internal conflict the narrator has with …show more content…

The narrator uses sinister word choice to set the tone for the events that unfold throughout the story. Powerful symbolism in the form of “The Black Cat” is used to explain to the audience how the narrator recognizes his alcoholism but is incapable of overcoming this problem. Finally a first person perspective gives readers an immersive sense of just how bad the narrator’s alcoholism. Cited source The Broadview Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Julia Gaunce. 2nd ed. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2012.

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The author increases the feeling of anxiety in the story by using foreshadowing. For example, after the narrator obtains the second black cat, he notices that the white patch on the second cat’s chest is forming into something. When the narrator realizes what the shape of the patch on the beast chest is, he states, “It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to have—and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared—it was how, I say, the image of a hideous—of a ghastly thing—of the GALLOWS!” (Poe 4)

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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).

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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.”

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As the story reads through it creates a transition that focuses on what action is going on in the story. The most significant part of the story is the way the story ends. The last lines of the story read, “Then for a moment I could see him as I might have let him go, sinuous and self-respecting in

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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.

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