A Black Cat Essay, Research Paper
Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” “The Black Cat,” which first appeared in the
United States Saturday Post (The Saturday Evening Post) on August 19, 1843, serves
as a reminder for all of us. The capacity for violence and horror lies within
each of us, no matter how docile and humane our dispositions might appear. – By
Martha Womack Martha Womack, better known to Internet users as Precisely Poe,
has a BA degree in English from Longwood College in Virginia, and teaches English
and Theatre Arts at Fuqua School in Farmville, Virginia. When Martha first began
teaching American literature, she found so much conflicting information about
Edgar Allan Poe that she became confused about what to teach her students. As
she began to research the author’s life and literature, Martha discovered that
a horrible injustice had occurred, and she became determined, like many others,
“to set the record straight.” “This mission” has lead to ten years of research
and the creation of her web site, Precisely Poe. Martha is proud and pleased to
be a part of the Poe Decoder, a continual project to dispel the myth surrounding
Poe, the man and his literature. “For the most wild yet most homely narrative
which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would
I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet,
mad am I not–and very surely do I not dream. But tomorrow I die, and today I
would unburden my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world…a
series of mere household events….[T]hese events have terrified–have tortured–have
destroyed me….[P]erhaps…some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less
excitable than my own…will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe,
nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.”
Tomorrow the narrator will be executed for the brutal murder of his wife. As he
awaits his own death, he finds it necessary to record the events which seduced
him into murder and informed the police of his crime. From infancy, the narrator
had been noted for his “docility and humanity of… disposition.” His tenderness
of heart made him “…the jest of [his] companions. [He] was especially fond of
animals, and was indulged by [his] parents with a great variety of pets.” He married
at an early age, and like the narrator, his wife had a similar love for animals.
They had “birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. Pluto,
the cat, was “a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious
to an astonishing degree.” As the narrator remembers Pluto, he also remembers
something that his wife once said about all black cats being witches in disguise
according to “some ancient popular notion.” He never really believed she was serious
about this point, and he is not quite sure why he remembers it now. Out of all
the pets, Pluto was his favorite. He “alone fed him, and he attended [him] wherever
he went about the house. It was even with great difficulty that [he] could prevent
[the cat] from following [him] through the streets.” Their friendship lasted for
several years until the man’s temperament began to change. He grew, “day by day,
more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others.” He cursed
at his wife, and eventually he “offered her personal violence.” His pets began
to feel the change in his disposition–a change brought about by the “Fiend Intemperance
[lack of control in consuming alcohol].” “One night, returning home, much intoxicated…[he]
fancied that the cat avoided [his] presence.” He grabbed Pluto, who out of fear,
“inflicted a slight wound upon [his owner's] hand with his teeth. The fury of
a demon instantly possessed [the man].” He took a penknife from his waistcoat
pocket, “and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!” When morning came,
the narrator saw what he had done to the poor creature on the previous night.
“The socket of the lost eye presented…a frightful appearance….” The narrator
unable to deal with the results of his own actions, “soon drown in wine all memory
of the deed.” “In the meantime, the cat slowly recovered. He went about the house
as usual, but as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at [the narrator's]
approach.” At first the man was somewhat grieved by the cat’s actions; however,
this feeling turned into irritation. “And then came, as if to [his] final and
irrevocable overthrow the spirit of PERVERSENESS. “One morning, in cold blood,
[the narrator] slipped a noose about [Pluto's] neck and hung it to the limb of
a tree;–hung it with the tears streaming from [his] eyes, and with the bitterest
remorse of [his] heart;–hung it because he knew that [the cat] had loved [him],
and because [he] felt it had given [him] no reason of offence;–hung it because
[he] knew that in so doing [he] was committing a sin–a deadly sin that would
so jeopardize [his] immortal soul as to place it–if such a thing were possible–even
beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible
God.” “On the night of the day on which this most cruel deed was done, [the narrator]
was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire….The whole house was blazing. It was
with great difficulty that [his] wife, a servant, and [himself], made [their]
escape….[His] entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and [he] resigned himself
thenceforward to despair.” “On the day succeeding the fire, [he] visited the ruins.
The walls with one exception had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment
wall…against which had rested the head of [his] bed….About this wall a dense
crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion
of it with very minute and eager attention….[U]pon the white surface…as if
graven in bas-relief…[was] the figure of a gigantic cat…[with] a rope about
[its] neck.” “When [the narrator] first beheld this apparition…[his] wonder
and terror were extreme…. [Then he remembered that] the cat…had been hung
in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been
immediately filled by the crowd–by someone of whom the animal must have been
cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into [his] chamber…with
the view of arousing [the narrator] from sleep. The falling of the other walls
had compressed the victim of [the man's cruel deed] into the substance of the
freshly-spread plaster; the lime…with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass…[had
created the hideous image in the wall].” For months, the man could not forget
the gigantic image of the cat in the wall. It was during this time that he actually
began to regret the loss of his cat Pluto, and he began to look for a similar
pet to take the cat’s place. “One night as [the narrator sat in a tavern in a
drunken stupor], [his] attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, [sitting
on a large container] of gin or of rum….” He approached this object, and touched
it. He was surprised to discover that “it was a black cat–a very large one–fully
as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto
had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although
indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast.”
The cat responded by purring loudly, and the narrator talked to the owner of the
tavern about purchasing the cat; however, “this person made no claim to it–knew
nothing of it–had never seen it before.” When the man left the tavern, the cat
accompanied him home. “When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once,
and became immediately a great favorite with [his] wife. Much to the narrator’s
surprise, he “…soon found a dislike to [the cat] arising within [him].” As time
passed these feelings turned to hatred of the cat. He began to avoid it out of
a sense “of shame, and the remembrance of [his] former deed of cruelty….What
added to [his] hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after [he]
brought it home, that, like Pluto, it had also been deprived of one of its eyes.
This circumstance, however, only endeared it to [his] wife….” The more that
the narrator avoided the cat, the more it seemed to follow him. “Whenever [he]
sat, [the cat] would crouch beneath [his] chair, or spring upon [his] knees, covering
[him] with its loathsome caresses. If [he] arose to walk it would get between
[his] feet and thus nearly throw [him] down. or fastening its long and sharp claws
in [his clothing], clamber, in this manner, to [his] breast.” The man longed to
destroy the cat, but refrained from doing so “partly by a memory of [his] former
crime, but chiefly…by an absolute dread of the beast. This dread was not exactly
a dread of physical evil–and yet [the man] was at a loss how otherwise to define
it….” More than once his wife had called his attention to the splotch of white
on this cat’s chest “…which constituted the sole visible difference between
the strange beast and the one [he] had destroyed.” Slowly, over a period of time,
this indefinite splotch of white began to take the shape of an object that terrified
the narrator. This ghastly shape was that “of the GALLOWS!–oh, mournful and terrible
engine of Horror and of Crime–of Agony and of Death!” “…[N]either by day nor
by night …[could the narrator find] the blessing of rest any more.” During the
day, the cat would never leave the man’s side, and at night, he would wake up
“…from dreams of unutterable fear to find the hot breath of the thing upon [his]
face, and its vast weight–an incarnate nightmare that [he] had no power to shake
off–incumbent eternally upon [his] heart! “Beneath the pressure of torments such
as these the feeble remnant of the good within [him] succumbed. Evil thoughts
became [his] sole intimates–the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness
of [his] usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind….”
“One day [his wife] accompanied [him], upon some household errand, into the cellar
of the old building which [their] poverty compelled [them] to inhabit. The cat
followed [the narrator] down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing [him] headlong,
exasperated [him] to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting in [his] wrath
the childish dread which had hitherto stayed [his] hand, [the narrator] aimed
a blow at the animal, which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal if it
had descended as [he] had wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of [his]
wife. Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal, [the narrator]
withdrew [his] arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead
upon the spot without a groan.” The next step was to conceal the body. Many thoughts
passed through the man’s mind. He thought about cutting the corpse into small
pieces, and destroying them by fire. Maybe he could dig a grave for the body in
the cellar floor; or possibly, he could cast the corpse into the well in the yard.
The narrator even thought about packing his wife’s body into a box as if it were
merchandise, and getting a porter to remove it from the house. Finally, after
much deliberation, the narrator knew that he had found the perfect solution. He
would “…wall [the body] up in the cellar, as the monks of the Middle Ages [were]
recorded to have walled up their victims.” The cellar was well-adapted for a purpose
such as this. “Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered
throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented
from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false
chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up and made to resemble the rest of
the cellar.” The narrator knew that he “…could readily displace the bricks at
this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye
could detect anything suspicious.” “By means of a crowbar [the narrator] easily
dislodged the bricks, and…carefully deposited the body against the inner wall….”
He then “…relaid the whole structure as it originally stood.” Afterwards, he
“…prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with
this [he] very carefully went over the new brick-work….The wall did not present
the slightest appearance of having been disturbed.” The narrator cleaned up the
mess with “the minutest care.” His next step was to look for the cat. The man
had “firmly resolved to put it to death.” However, the cat must have been frightened
by the man’s previous actions, and it was now nowhere to be found. “It did not
make its appearance during the night; and thus for one night, at least since its
introduction into the house, [the narrator] soundly and tranquilly slept; [yes],
slept even with the burden of murder upon [his] soul.” Three days passed, and
still there was no sight of the cat. A few inquiries had been made about the narrator’s
wife, but he had easily answered those. “Even a search had been instituted–but
of course nothing was to be discovered. Upon the fourth day…the police came,
very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation
of the premises….They left no nook or corner unexplored….[F]or the third or
fourth time, they descended into the cellar….The police were thoroughly satisfied
and prepared to depart. [The narrator] burned to say if but one word, by way of
triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of [his] guiltlessness.” “Gentlemen,”
[the narrator said], as the party ascended the steps, “I delight to have allayed
your suspicions. I wish you all health and a little more courtesy. By the bye,
gentlemen, this–this is a very well-constructed house…I may say an excellently
well-constructed house. These walls–are you going, gentlemen?–these walls are
solidly put together….” At this point, the narrator “…rapped heavily with
a cane which [he] held in [his] hand, upon that very portion of the brickwork
behind which stood the corpse of [his wife]….No sooner had the reverberation
of [his] blows sunk into silence, than [he] was answered by a voice from within
the tomb!–by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child,
and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream…a howl–a
wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph….” “Swooning, [the narrator]
staggered to the opposite [side of the cellar].” The police began tearing down
the wall. There before all, stood “…the corpse, already greatly decayed and
clotted with gore….Upon its head…sat the [cat], the hideous beast whose craft
had seduced [the man] into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned [him]
to the hangman. [He] had walled the monster up within the tomb.” Setting As the
story begins, the narrator is in jail awaiting his execution, which will occur
on the following day, for the brutal murder of his wife. At that point, the rest
of the story is told in flashback, as the narrator pens “…the most wild, yet
homely narrative…[whose] events have terrified–have tortured–have destroyed
[him].” Characters Although several characters are mentioned in this story, the
true focus lies upon the nameless narrator, who is known for his “…docility
and humanity of …disposition. His tenderness of heart…[made him] the jest
of [his] companions.” He was especially fond of animals, and he was pleased to
find a similar fondness for pets in his wife. They had many pets including “…birds,
gold fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.” The cat was a large,
beautiful animal who was entirely black. Pluto, as he was called, was the narrator’s
favorite pet. He alone fed him, and Pluto followed the narrator wherever he went.
Occasionally, his wife would refer to an old superstitious belief that “…all
black cats [were] witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this
point….” Point of View Poe writes this story from the perspective of the narrator,
a man whose “…temperament and character [are transformed] through the instrumentality
of the Fiend Intemperance [alcohol].” Telling the story from the first person