Who Is Poe Insane

Around 1.5 to 3.5 percent of people in the world experience traits of psychosis (Calabrese). This behavior is observed in one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most interesting stories. “The Black Cat,” by Poe, has a narrator who exhibits clear signs of psychosis, though, the narrator continuously claims he is not ill and what happened was entirely normal. This makes for an interesting debate if he truly is insane or not. Despite the narrator’s argument that murder was the simple result of cause and effect, Poe makes it clear in his writing that he is insane. From the start of the story, Poe’s narrator claims what happened was logical and truly did happen. He is sure what happened was not imaginary, “Yet, mad am I not and very surely do I not dream” (Poe

He describes it in full detail, “One morning, in cold blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; hung it with the bitterest remorse at my heart; hung it because I knew that it had loved me.” (Poe 360). Even while aware Pluto did nothing wrong, he murders and hangs the cat. He is even aware enough to know this could jeopardize him being redeemable by God. “... And because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin--a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it--if such thing were possible--even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.” (Poe 361). Even while the narrator is aware, he still commits the crime making it increasingly obvious he is out of his mind. Additionally, after killing the cat, the narrator begins to feel haunted by Pluto. He starts believing Pluto’s presence is continuing to follow him in weird ways. He sees Pluto engraved on his wall after his house burns down and explains, “I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic