The Black Cat

“The Black Cat” is another story that is infunerice by Poe's background. This story focuses on heavy alcoholism it's also very dark. The story starts with the narrator in jail talking about his love of animals and how he isn't crazy despite what he did. The narrator has random breakouts of anguer and pysciy hurts his wife and also his other pets but never touches the cat(Pluto).his breakouts are caused by his alcoholism. One night he comes home drunk and tries to play with Pluto but Pluto runs away and doesn't want to play. He then grabs pluto and pluto bites him. In a fit of anger he grabs pluto and cuts out his eye with a penknife. The next morning he wakes up and knows he cant reverse what he did. He ends up hanging pluto from a tree. Later that night the narrator house burned down. He tries to act like the events are not a product of each other but later that day the neighbours are gaiters around a wall with an imprint of a cat with a rope around his head. He can't escape what he has done and it begins to drive him crazy. A couple months later he is coming home drunk and finds a stray black cat with a missing eye, almost a clone of pluto only difference is he has a white spot on his chest. He brings the cat home to please his wife. After having the cat in his home he starts to build a hate for him he believes it is pluto trying to get revenge on him. One day him and his wife go into the cellar with the cat. The narrator almost trips over the cat and finally snaps he grabs an axe and tries to attack a cat. His wife tries to denfind the cat and in a pit of rage he burinnes the axe in her head killing her. He ends up hiding her body in basement walls. A couple days later the police show up. The narrator applies with them and leads them threw the house very calm and collective he believes he is going to get away with it. Once he lead them into the basement he taps onto the wall where the body is to show the solid craftsmanship of the house. Once he does that there is a cry inside the wall the police tore down the wall and found  the body and on top of it is the cat. This story is a straight product of Poe's life the main theme is alcoholism something that Poe's life was affected with. Another theme I took form this story is trying to hide from your past. The narrator knows he messed up by what he did. He tries to make up for it by bringing home the stray cat. This drives him crazy and he thinks it the spirit of pluto trying to get revenge. In all reality, it was just a normal cat but in his head he made it seem like that. It drove him crazy and ended up killing his wife and going to jail.

Link to “The Black Cat” - https://poestories.com/read/blackcat