FREE ESSAY ON THE BLACK CAT

THE BLACK CAT

The Black Cat
by Edgar Allan Poe
The black cat by Edgar Allan Poe is very characteristic of Poe's writing. All of his
stories are dark and mysterious, and mostly deal with death and murder. The Black Cat
deal in all of these aspects. The story is written in a first person way. The main
character, which is sentenced to death because of a murder he committed, is writing from
his jail cell about the occurrence that placed him there. He is writing this to unburden
his soul , as he put it.
The man, Poe never reveals his name through out the entire story he just says I, begins
by saying that he was always fond of animals. I believe that the animals in this story
represent his life in all. The entire story is placed around this one cat, which he
affectionately named Pluto. 
He says that in his childhood he got along better with the animals that his parents had
than others, "With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding
them.1" When the man got married him and his wife had a house hold of pets with them. "We
had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat2" I think that by
listing all these pets he was saying something about him self. Through the birds, fish
and rabbits, I believe he was saying that he liked to be alone, but would associate with
people if made to. For birds tend to keep to themselves in their cages but can be taught
to talk and do other things. I think that when he was made to be around people he would
act like "man's best friend" a dog. Polite and free spirited. Through his symbol with the
monkey I think that he was saying that he was like a wild animal made domestic.
Now through the cat I think he made his greatest analogy. Cats tend to stay off by
themselves but if they are around people they are around one person. Like the main
character in this story, he tended to shy away from people and stick to himself and the
cat. 
The author continues to say that sometimes he would feel fits of aggression toward his
wife and would sometimes even threat at "personal violence3." He even sheepishly admits
that he took out this aggression on the animals around him, but for some unknown reason,
he could not take anything out on the cat. But this did not last. For as he says:
"One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of
my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my
presence...I took my pen knife, opened it, grasped the poor
beast by the throat...and deliberately cut one of its eyes from
the socket.4"
I believe that the symbolism in this is very interesting. I think that when the man who
is writing this was younger he too was abused by either his father or another and the cat
was him. Now the abuse may not of been physical but may have been metal, hence the injury
on the head of the animal. Because of the abuse that he made on the animals it was a
picture of his life. Constant bombardment from other people on how he should live his
life.
This wasn't exactly the end mind you. He once again came home drunk this time killing the
cat in a very disturbing way. So disturbing that I shall not describe the scene for you
as to make you feel untold torture in reading it. When the man was once again sober he
realized what he had done and felt great remorse from it. Because of this he and his wife
went to find another cat. They did find one but it too had only one eye. Because of this
the man hated the cat, but his 
wife was only drawn to it more and more. She then convinced him to purchase it. As time
went on this cat reminded him more and more of Pluto, hence making him hate it more and
more. One day as he was walking down stairs to their cellar the cat tripped him
accidental sending him into a rage. He then attempted to kill the cat only killing his
wife instead. Seeing this the cat ran off and hid in the cellar. He attempted to hide his
wife by tearing down a weak part of the wall in the cellar and placing her in it. Then he
rebuilt the wall. After this he felt remorse for sometime but slowly it went away. He
never thought about the cat or his wife he breathed as a freeman for the horrors of what
he had done.
Then the police came to the house wanting to investigate the murder. He welcomed them in
and let them search the house. They went down stairs and from behind the rebuilt wall the
heard a loud moan, a cry of sorts. The man became nervous and more so as they started to
tear down the wall. When they finished he saw the cat that he thought was dead sitting on
the bones of his now decaying wife. He was arrested.
Now the irony of this is I think that the cat was one and the same. That maybe the cat
came back to haunt the man that he loved dearly, because that same man had killed him for
no reason. The symbolism in this is that the man was actually the cat hiding by his dead
soul to capture the men that had tormented him for so long. He was really the cat through
out the story and the main character was the people who had made his life miserable. 
This is the way that I saw all of Poe's stories. As a hope that one day the men that hurt
him would get their dues and his way of expressing that was through the grim, gruesome
stories that he wrote.