Poe Black Cat
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In Poe’s “The Black Cat”, what is the significance of the black cat?
The black cat has always been considered a symbol of bad luck and evil, and in this story the cat seems to represent the bad luck present in the narrators life. The cat does not seem to be responsible for the bad luck, but is always present when things go wrong, and a lot of time is on the receiving end of this bad luck.
The first mention of the black cat in the short story is when the narrators wife noticed his partiality for domestic pets and “lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind”, which includes a black cat. In the beginning, the narrator describes the cat as a “large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to a degree”. When he describes the cat in this way, the narrator gave us his view of the cat as an everyday, normal household cat that people who have had an encounter with cats can feel a real connection to. Even though some people might have the superstitious belief that an entirely black cat might be a minion of the underworld or a witch in disguise as his wife did when she “made frequent allusions to the ancient popular notion”, the narrator tries his best to also show that this is a normal cat like any other. The narrator also gives the pet the name of Pluto, which is the name for the god of the underworld in Roman mythology. By doing this, he further connects the black cat of his to something from the underworld. He also calls what he sees when he went back to check out the ruins of his house that burned down as an apparition and a “phantasm of the cat”. His view of the black cat goes from a normal household pet to something that haunts him for months. The loss of the cat not only brought him remorse at what he did to the cat when he hung it on a rope but also regret at the loss of a fine pet.”
The superstition that cats have nine lives comes into play when the second cat comes into his life. The second cat was very similar to the first with exception of white markings on the second cat. These white markings around his neck and white on his chest that begins to resemble the gallows by the end of the story seem to be remnants of the cat’s first life. I do not believe that the markings on the cat’s chest changed toward the end of the story so much as I believe that the narrator’s perception changed with his madness.
In “The Black Cat”, give examples of how the narrator, a mad man, stood at a distance and watched the process of his own change and madness.
The narrator in “The Black Cat” illustrates the capacity of the human mind to observe its own deterioration and the ability of the mind to comment upon its own destruction without being able to halt that deterioration. The narrator of “The Black Cat” is fully aware of his mental deterioration, and at certain points in the story, he recognizes the change that is occurring within him, and he tries to do something about it, but he finds himself unable to stop himself from falling into madness.
In this story, the narrator begins his confession in retrospect, at a time when he was considered a perfectly normal person, known for his docility and his humane considerations of animals and people. His parents indulged his fondness for animals, and he was allowed to have many different kinds of pets. Furthermore, he was very fortunate to marry a woman who was also fond of animals. Among the many animals, that they possessed was a