The Black Cat

The Black retch by Edgar Allan Poe is angiotensin-converting enzyme of Poes greatest literary works that embodies his sense of touch themes of death, violence, and darkness. Poes main character begins his narration of his horrible wrongdoings regarding them as a series of mere household events (Poe 705). However, this is where Poes satire and irony begins and the bilgewater progresses to show the deranged mindset of this character as he tries to confirm his actions. As the main character proceeds to rationalize his crime, Poe is able to claim a sense of irony through his use of foreshadowing, parables and symbolism.Irony begins in spite of appearance the fibbers introduction to his confession by telling the contri hardlyor that he will tell his story but without comment (Poe 705). inwardly this same ironic tone, the cashier continues to humanize his actions and plea for justifi kation but predicts that what he has already done has destroyed him. Poe describes how these ev ents deem terrifiedhave torturedhave destroyed him (Poe 705). Poe adds an ironic tone to the story by telling it through the fibbers perspective.The fabricator is a dotty individual and the average reader cannot relate to the evil that has erupted inside him. As he begins to rationalize, there is a vast difference between the fibber and the reader leading to the irony that the man feels that this was all a practice series of misfortune. Literary critic, Richard Badenhausen, explains Poes decision for telling the story from the narrators point-of-view, Despite pledging to tell his tale without comment, the narrator is constantly qualifying, correcting, and explaining, in the hope that the audience will see events from his perspective.Although he ironically announces in the opening sentence that he neither expects nor solicits belief the narrator is obsessively concerned with both activities he hopes for understanding from his listeners and energetically pursues approval by empl oying the various manipulative tools of the storyteller (Badenhausen 487). Finally, Poe also thickens the suspense of the story with the primordial foreshadowing that the main character feels that he may harm his married woman writing, At length, I even offered her personal violence (Poe 706 ). The greatest metaphor throughout this tale is the dismal goose.While the narrators wife has been kn protest to refer to the dark-haired feline as a enthral in disguise, the metaphor for Poe is that the cat is not only a superstitious monster but it is also a metaphor for universe the narrators own personal demon (Poe 706). The hap events with the black cats in the story portray that they are metaphors for the narrators own problems that haunt him. As the series of events continue throughout the story, the cat becomes a visual element in the scene for the narrators recurring violence and lowestly brings him to the point of his insanity.Moreover, it has been argued that the cat is a metaphor for the narrators wife. Critics claim that the following passage raises suspicion that the killing of the archetypical cat was actually the execute of his own wife. Poe writes Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th. 1. New York, NY W. W. Norton & adenine Company, Inc. , 2008. 705-711. Print. Critics who support this notion feel that the reversal is substitution in wife for cat and cat for wife and that the narrator had clearly projected his feelings for his wife onto the cat (Amper 475).Literary critic, Susan Amper, commented on this metaphor-theory, It is not merely that the wife was perpetually the intended victim she was the original, in fact the only victim. Moreover, this inference provides a much more compelling reason for the narrators substitution of cat for wife or rather twin reasons, for his pretense that he has only killed his cat serves both to ease his own sense of guilt, and to shield him from prosecution for murder (Amper 475). This theory also support s the irony that the wifes body was decomposed afterward merely three-days and leaves the reader with one of Poes signature suspenseful, disturbing endings.The final writing element that Poe uses throughout this short story is symbolism. Readers are introduced to one of the storys main characters, netherworld, the black cat, who supposedly provokes the narrator into committing his flagitious acts of violence but is merely symbolic for the narrators imbedded abomination and evil. Not only is this feline symbolic for evil because of superstitions regarding black cats, the cats name has a deeper symbolic meaning. According to Roman Mythology, Pluto is name of the god of the dead and ruler of the underworld.This symbolic name not only represents the narrators cruel intentions but also provides a sense of foreshadowing. After the first black cat is slain, a stake black cat appears and is unwelcomed by the narrator. According to Professor Ann Bliss from the University of California, l ooks outstandingly like the original except in one respect it is attach with a patch of tweed that, for the narrator, increasingly comes to resemble a gallowsreminding the narrator of his violence toward the first cat and foreshadowing acts of violence to come (Bliss 97).The white color of the patch with the offsetting black fur is also symbolic to the respectable and evil confliction within the narrator. Finally, the second black cat leads to the narrator allegedly murdering his wife accidently. In conclusion, Poes literary masterpiece, The Black Cat is a suspenseful story filled with irony and hidden messages and themes. Although this is a short-story, Poe skilfully provides the reader with enough evidence to make conclusions about the motive, sequence of events, and the narrators denial of apparent mental disorder and alcoholism that plagues him.