0 The Black Cat example essay topic

A Critical Analysis of Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Black Cat' Metaphors not only can be used as literal interpretation of events, but also have metaphorical meanings. A good example would be the black cat portrayed in Edgar Allan Poe!'s! ^0 The Black Cat! +/- and how the narrator implies throughout the story that the cat is of a demonic creature. The black cat in the short story not only has a literal meaning of a normal household cat but also from a metaphorical-side of meaning, as the narrator!'s personal demon, which haunts him throughout the story and brings him to the point of near insanity.

The black cat is first mentioned when the narrator!'s wife noticed his partiality for domestic pets and! ^0 lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind! +/- (96), which includes a black cat. In the beginning, the narrator describes the cat as a! ^0 large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to a degree! +/- (96).

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 may have the superstitious belief that black cat might be a minion of the underworld or a witch in disguise, which his wife did when she! ^0 made frequent allusions to the ancient popular notion! +/- (97), the narrator tries his best to also show that this is a normal cat like any other. The narrator 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 (98) and a! ^0 phantasm of the cat! +/- (98). An apparition is a ghost or spirit and by following what the narrator describes, 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 regrets at the loss of a fine pet. Another mention of the black cat as something of an underworld creature was made again when the narrator called it an!

^0 Incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off! +/- (100). He feels so terrified of what he imagines to be the image of the gallows on the creature!'s chest. He even goes so far as to say that the black cat is!

^0 incumbent eternally his heart! +/- (100), which means that the whole image of the! ^0 demonic! +/-, black-furred creature is permanently fixed in his mind and soul that whatever that is good within himself is gone. This is evident when it says in the story that! ^0 beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed!

+/- (100). The narrator in the second half of the story starts to call the black cat a monster, which further emphasizes the change in his view of the animal. His happiness at getting rid of the black beast after murdering his wife was so evident when he says to himself! ^0 I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme!! +/- (101).

Even though he views the murder of his poor wife as a hideous act which was brought on by a rage, which is! ^0 more than demoniacal! +/- (100), the very thought of his tormentor and the monster that has not left gives him peace and somehow makes the death of his wife less hideous. The relief in finding that the creature had disappeared is stated when he felt a!

^0 blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in his bosom! +/- (101). This shows his undeniably, demon-like hatred against the black cat which he calls his! ^0 favourite pet and playmate! +/- (97) when he first introduced the creature.

The strongest evidence in the whole story that the narrator sees the black cat as a demon from the underworld is in the last two paragraphs when he describes the sound that black cat made in the cellar walls to something that! ^0 might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation! +/- (101). This is an extremely strong contrast of something which isn! t really from the underworld to the hell-fiend that the narrator imagines it to be, because a mere cat wouldn! t be able to make a sound so hellish, have a! ^0 solitary eye of fire! +/- or have the means to! ^0 seduce!

+/- (102) him into murder. It is very likely that the narrator!'s own demons cry out for release after he knocked on the cellar wall, which he used to cover up his own hideous crime of rage. In conclusion, I would like to point out that the narrator!'s own feelings of despair and hatred towards his black-furred pet caused him to realize that whatever has happened to him was the pet!'s fault. He might not have seen the black cat as a! ^0 witch in disguise! +/- or an!

^0 Arch-Fiend! +/- in the beginning of the story, but by his own fault and together with the help from his encounter with alcoholism, suffered a tragic ending of his own making.