Edgar Allan Poe “The Black Cat”
Summary
Poe’s short story ‘The Black Cat’ is narrated by the unreliable insane first narrator on the eve of his death who distorts the truth as he conveys how self-deception and alcohol drive him to be wild ending up killing his beloved cat and wife. The narrator says, “But tomorrow I die, and today I would unburthen my soul,” foreshadowing that the narrator will confess what is burdening him (Poe 2). The narrator does not reveal why he is scheduled to die the next day until the end of the story. At the beginning of the story, a narrator is an honorable person who has a great love for pets. The narrator married at a young age and made his wife own pets such as rabbits, a dog, a monkey, and birds (Poe 2). However, the narrator seems to be in great love with the beautiful large black cat named Pluto, more than anything, including his wife. The relationship between Pluto and the narrator is so close and tender that they follow each other everywhere. Although his wife makes jokes that the cat perhaps is a witch due to its exceptional intelligence (Poe 3). The name Pluto is a metaphor used in the story. An example outside the story is, “This coffee shop is an icebox!”
Suddenly everything went sideways due to the narrator consuming alcohol, terming it as “Fiend Intemperance” (Poe 12). The narrator started to mistreat his pets, including his wife, although he spares Pluto later one night he abused “even Pluto” (Poe 13). One night the narrator came home drunk, believing Pluto is avoiding him; the narrator tries to seize the cat; however, the cat bites him on the hand. The narrator seemingly “possessed” by “demons,” he retaliated and pulled a knife and cuts out one of the cat’s eyes (Poe 19). The following morning the narrator felt remorseful and horrified of his actions. The cat’s eyes healed; however, the bonded relationship between the narrator and the cat faded away. Pluto started avoiding the narrator all the time. Despite the narrator being remorseful, now he got irritated by the cat’s behavior. The narrator is “overthrown” by the spirit of “PERVERSENESS,” and he decides to do more wrong for the sake of wrongdoing (Poe 22). One morning, the narrator hanged Pluto cold-blooded on the limb of a tree even though he was sobbing (Poe 23). In the story, the narrator says, “From my infancy, I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition” (Poe 4). This is ironic since the narrator mistreated his pets, and in the end, he hanged Pluto. An example of an irony outside the story is, “Paul is happy as a clam.”
On the night the narrator hanged Pluto, his house burns down. The narrator, together with his wife and servant, escaped the fire unhurt, but the fire destroyed his possessions and home (Poe 25). The following day, the narrator came back only to find a large image of a cat with a rope around his neck on the surface of the only surviving wall. Another day while the narrator is drinking alcohol, he sees a black cat resembling Pluto except that he has a white patch on his chest (Poe 27). The narrator befriends the cat and takes it home, but later, he hated the cat since it amplified his guilt. In the end, the narrator tried to kill the cat with an ax. The wife’s narrator intervened, killing her with an ax in the process. He hides her body behind the wall of the basement, but later, he realizes the cat is missing, and for three days, he slept undisturbed. However, on the fourth day after the incident, the police arrived, asking about his wife’s disappearance. The narrator rapped on the wall of the basement, alerting the cat to howl, giving a lead to the police where the wife’s body is located (Poe 31). In concluding the story, the narrator says, “I had walled the monster up within the tomb!” (Poe 32). This is a metaphor used in the story. Another example outside the story is “America is a melting pot.”
Work Cited
Poe, Edgar Allan. The Black Cat: Short Story. HarperCollins Canada, 2014.