The house collapses, except for one wall that displays the indented image of a gigantic cat with a noose around its neck. The narrator's house mysteriously burns down that night he, his wife, and their servant escape unharmed but lose all their possessions. In a sudden fit of rage, he ties a noose around Pluto's neck and hangs it from a tree, where it dies. Enraged, he gouges out one of the cat's eyes.įrom that moment on, Pluto flees in terror at the narrator's approach the narrator feels remorse for his cruelty at first, but soon becomes increasingly irritated at the cat's behavior. After a night of heavy drinking, he believes that Pluto is avoiding him and seizes it, only to suffer a bite on his hand. The narrator and Pluto become particularly fond of each other, but after several years the narrator becomes an alcoholic and begins to mistreat his pets. He describes his lifelong love of animals and the many pets that he and his wife have taken in, including a large black cat named Pluto. The story is presented as a first-person narrative, using an unnamed unreliable narrator who is awaiting execution. "The Black Cat", which also features questions of sanity versus insanity, is Poe's strongest warning against the dangers of alcoholism.
In both, a murderer carefully conceals his crime and believes himself unassailable, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself, impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt. The story is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's " The Tell-Tale Heart".
The police soon come and, after the narrator's tapping on the wall is met with a shrieking sound, they find not only the wife's corpse but also the black cat that had been accidentally walled in with the body and alerted them with its cry. He conceals the body behind a brick wall in his basement. He attempts to kill the cat with an axe but his wife stops him instead, the narrator murders his wife. He soon finds another black cat, similar to the first except for a white mark on its chest, but he soon develops a hatred for it as well. The home burns down but one remaining wall shows a burned outline of a cat hanging from a noose. His favorite, a pet black cat, bites him one night and the narrator punishes it by cutting its eye out and then hanging it from a tree.
In the story, an unnamed narrator has a strong affection for pets until he perversely turns to abusing them. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post. " The Black Cat" is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe. Early 20th-century illustration by Byam Shaw
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