The king of gothic literature, Edgar Allan Poe, poured his life and heart into his tales. Everything he struggled with, all the sadness and madness, nightmares and loves appeared on his pages. Of all his stories, “The Black Cat” stands out as a warning—perhaps from Poe himself—beyond the grave.
Find the full story here. https://www.ibiblio.org/ebooks/Poe/Black_Cat.pdf
THE BLACK CAT by Edgar Allan Poe (Summary)
In true Poe fashion, the story opens with intrigue, explaining that the story you are about to hear is so unusual, so bewildering that you’ll likely not believe it. He says:
“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 surely dop I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul.”
Horror and mystery writers like to begin with a bang, so to speak. They invoke this sense of urgency by using sin, madness, and darkness of the human soul. In essence, we know from the very beginning of the story that the forbidden will be at its core. This person has done something grave enough to die, and this is his confession. And just like that, we’re instantly hooked.
The main character in the story begins by telling us that he has always been a kind, docile spirit who loves animals and has a tender heart. He’s even been made fun of because of his sensitivity. Pets, in particular, give him great pleasure since he hasn’t had to best luck with friendships. He says: “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 [or flimsy] fidelity of mere Man (p. 4).”
He does, however, find a happy companion in his wife, whom he married in his youth. She, too, has the kind disposition and love of animals. The two of them soon acquire several pets, one of which is a black cat. He says: “[It] was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree (p. 4).” His wife frequently mentions the superstition that regards all black cats as witches in disguise.
If you’re interested in hearing more about the superstitions surrounding black cats around the world, check out Ep. 59.
She didn’t truly believe the superstitions, but because of the cat’s nature, she couldn’t help but mention the eerie connection.
Pluto, the cat’s name, soon became the storyteller’s favorite animal. Pluto follows him everywhere. For several years, the storyteller and Pluto enjoy a wonderful friendship. But something changes in the narrator. He becomes afflicted by a “fiend intemperance.” His alcoholism began shifting his personality, making him more and more violent. He begins abusing his wife, both verbally and physically. He neglects the pets, as well. But, he never harms Pluto. That is, until his temperament grows even worse. He says: “But my disease grew upon me—for what disease is like Alcohol!—and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish—even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper (p. 5).”
One night when the storyteller returns home, heavily intoxicated, the cat runs from him. Offended by that, the narrator says that he grabbed the cat, spooking it, and Pluto bit him. This causes the narrator to become enraged. He says:
“The fury of a demon possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nutured, thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity (p.5).”
Later, he felt somewhat guilty about cutting the eye out of the cat, but he admits that the remorse never quite made it to his soul. He didn’t change his ways, and soon, he fell even deeper into excess.
Meanwhile, the cat, understandably, fled from him whenever he approached. This saddened the narrator at first, remembering the friendship they once enjoyed, but later, the cat fleeing made him angry. One morning, he slipped a noose around Pluto’s neck and hung the cat from a tree. He says:
“[I] hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart;—hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin—a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it—if such a thing was possible—even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God (p. 6).”
On the same night, the narrator awakens to the cry of fire. The curtains on his bed were in flames, and his house was blazing. His wife, a servant, and himself were able to escape, but everything he owned had been swallowed up by the fire.
When he returns to the scene of the fire, he sees that one wall remains, and it has an outline of a cat with a rope around its neck—an ominous promise that the narrator will pay for his evil actions against the cat.
The cat haunts him for months until the narrator decides to look for another black cat to replace the one he’d murdered. He finds one at a tavern. The cat looks so much like Pluto, but there’s one exception. This cat has a splotch of white on its breast. The cat is affectionate, so the narrator takes it home. But slowly, he began to dislike the cat. It reminded him of his atrocious actions because this cat also had a missing eye. One day, the narrator notices the white on the animal resembled a rope around its neck. He says:
“I started hourly from dreams of unutterable fear to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight—an incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake off—incumbent eternally upon my heart! Beneath the pressure of torments such as these the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed (p. 10-11).”
One day, he and his wife walked to the cellar, and the cat followed. The cat trips him, which throws him into a fit of madness. He lifts an ax to kill it, but his wife grabs his arm. This infuriates him, and he thrusts the ax into her brain, instead. He buries her inside the cellar wall, which had recently been plastered. All evidence of her death is cleaned up and put away as if it never happened. He searched for the cat to kill it as well, but it had disappeared.
Speaking of bodies buried in walls, check out the true story of a skeleton found inside the walls of Savannah’s Foley House Inn, Ep. 52.
In the following days, people began asking about his wife. He gave them a lie, which sufficed for a while. The police came and searched the property, but nothing seemed out of place. The narrator felt quite good about himself until something cried from behind the cellar wall. The police immediately began tearing down the plaster and found his wife’s corpse, and sitting on her head—to the narrator’s horror—is the screeching black cat. He had “walled the monster up within the tomb (p. 14).”
ABOUT EDGAR ALLAN POE
In January of 1842, Poe’s wife Virginia began showing symptoms of consumption, now known as tuberculosis. Poe started drinking more heavily during this period of his life, and his job situation had been tumultuous. Poe may have been expressing his own fears concerning alcoholism through this story.
“The Black Cat” was published on August 19th of 1843, in The Saturday Evening Post. It’s considered by many to be one of Poe’s darkest stories. It was published between “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado.” It starts and ends much like in “The Tell-Tale Heart.” And like in “The Cask of Amontillado,” the main character walls up a man, burying him alive.
SYMBOLISM OF THE BLACK CAT
- Madness begins and ends the tale. From the very beginning, it’s clear that our narrator cannot be trusted. He’s unreliable. He claims that he isn’t mad and that he’s telling the truth. However, he hopes that someone listening will shed light on another prospect. He’s hoping that someone will give him a possible natural explanation of the supernatural elements he experienced. Whether from alcohol or events, though, the narrator did experience moments of madness.
- In Literature, as in life, everything has a meaning. The name given to the cat, Pluto, means the Roman God of the Underworld. The name is a foreshadowing of death. As mentioned earlier, black cats are often associated with bad omens and witchery. Both the name and the color of the cat are significant symbolism in how the story will end.
- The house fire itself is another hint to the meaning of the story. The narrator says that his entire worldly wealth is swallowed up by the fire, leading us to believe that his success was taken by alcoholism. He had literally devoured, drank away, all his wealth and security. There was no money, possessions, jobs left for him, leaving him in ruin.
- The gallows are another symbol in the story. The narrator executed Pluto, and Pluto’s successor sent the speaker to the gallows. But before all of that, the narrator would have felt life closing in on him, anyway. Through his actions, he’d lost everything he’d once cared for. His days were numbered because of madness and alcoholism.
THEME OF THE BLACK CAT
Themes are ideas that pervade a piece of literature. A few themes stand out in “The Black Cat.”
- Superstitions surrounding black cats, demons, imps, and other evils run thick in this story. The narrator is clearly superstitious despite having implying he isn’t at the beginning of the tale.
- Guilt is another key theme. Repeatedly, the narrator mentions that he felt guilty, if only for a short time. Guilt leads to more alcohol, which leads to more poor decisions to make him feel guilty again. The relationship between guilt and alcohol was a vicious cycle that led the narrator deeper and deeper into madness.
- The Divided Self is another strong theme. The narrator slips from sanity to madness throughout the story. He almost seems like two people—one telling the story and one committing the atrocious deeds.
THE MONSTER OF THE STORY
- The Narrator – It’s clear that the narrator rightfully earns the MONSTER AWARD for this story. After all, he abuses his animals and his wife. Then he murders them. Many studies have revealed the link between violence to animals and violence toward people. People who harm animals will likely also harm humans at some point.
- Alcoholism – The temperance movement was happening in the United States when this story was written. Poe calls it a “Fiend Intemperance.” The creation of the “Fiend Intemperance” is an effort to shirk responsibly by vilifying the devilish hold of alcohol on the narrator. He even says that he was possessed by this spirit of intemperance. Again, the narrator distances himself from responsibility.
- Perverseness – The narrator mentions that he’s done these acts because of the “Imp of the Perverse.” He argues that all humanity gets some sort of enjoyment from actions taken in perversion. As if to say that there’s a rebel inside of us looking to escape any way possible.
- The Cat – Some may argue that the cat (or cats) in the story are also monsters bred from the violence they received. At the end of the story, the narrator cries out to God, asking him to deliver him from the Arch Fiend or the devil. To him, it’s the cat. The speaker is again pushing blame, this time on the cat.
MORAL OF THE BLACK CAT
“The Black Cat” leaves readers with a strong warning about the effects of alcohol and giving into our perverse impulses. The spiraling life of the narrator serves as a reminder that we’re all one addiction and a few bad choices away from becoming someone we no longer recognize. The speaker was once a nice, kind, pet-loving man who fell into a pit and kept digging himself deeper. Poe’s own battle with alcoholism may have inspired him to warn others.
We will, all of us, reap what we sow. This is a fundamental truth. Our fates are tied to karma. As Newton’s third law of motion states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
The speaker of this story is case and point. Whatever we put into the world, we will receive from it. Our kindness, our evils, our actions, and our words will be back to revisit us at some point. And just like the cat, they’ll either bring the gallows or hopefully a pair of wings.
Music:
- Unpromised by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4568-unpromised
License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
- Ghostpocalypse – 6 Crossing the Threshold by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
