"The Black Cat" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1843. It is a tale of horror and mystery, told from the perspective of the narrator, who is an unreliable and potentially mad protagonist.
The narrator begins by describing his love for animals, particularly his pets, and how he has always been a kind and gentle owner. However, as he becomes more and more intoxicated with alcohol, his behavior towards his animals becomes increasingly cruel and violent. He admits to harming his pets, including hanging one of his cats by the neck until it was almost dead.
Despite this disturbing behavior, the narrator still claims to love his pets and is particularly fond of a large and beautiful black cat named Pluto. However, as the narrator's alcoholism and violence worsen, he begins to resent Pluto and eventually becomes convinced that the cat is possessed by the devil. In a fit of rage, he takes a knife and gouges out one of the cat's eyes.
The narrator's actions have disastrous consequences, as the cat becomes even more feared and hated by the narrator and his wife. Eventually, the cat disappears and the narrator begins to suspect that his wife has killed it. However, as he is searching for the body, he discovers that the cat is still alive and hiding in the cellar. In a moment of madness, the narrator takes an axe and kills the cat, burying it in the wall of the cellar.
As the narrator is confessing these events to the police, he becomes increasingly agitated and paranoid. He begins to believe that the walls of his house are talking to him and that the cat's ghost is haunting him. Eventually, the wall behind which the cat is buried collapses, revealing the cat's corpse and the narrator's guilt.
"The Black Cat" is a disturbing tale that explores the theme of guilt and the dangers of alcohol abuse. It also serves as a cautionary tale about the destructive power of anger and resentment. The narrator's descent into madness and violence is a warning about the consequences of giving in to our darkest impulses.
'The Black Cat,' by Edgar Allan Poe
Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. The whole house was blazing. The destruction was complete.
The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe
Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. In the corner I saw a dark object that I had not seen before. This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body.
Poe's Stories The Black Cat Summary & Analysis
For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But I am detailing a chain of facts - and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed. The narrator begins not only to detest the new catâwhich is always underfootâbut to fear it. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man.
'The Black Cat'âPlot, Symbols, Themes, and Key Quotes
I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually -- very gradually -- I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence. These walls â are you going, gentlemen? This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. He decided to wall up her body in one of the cellar walls. No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend.
Biographical Approach: The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe
As I left the inn, it followed me, and I allowed it to do so. I am almost ashamed to own - yes, even in this felon's cell, I am almost ashamed to own - that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. I walked the cellar from end to end. I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity. These wallsâare you going, gentlemen? I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. The destruction was complete.
