The Black Cat

The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe is one of Poes greatest literary works that embodies his signature themes of death, violence, and darkness. Poes main character begins his narration of his dreadful wrongdoings regarding them as a series of mere household events (Poe 705). However, this is where Poes satire and irony begins and the story progresses to show the deranged mindset of this character as he tries to justify his actions. As the main character proceeds to rationalize his crime, Poe is able to convey a sense of irony through his use of foreshadowing, metaphors and symbolism.Irony begins within the vote counters introduction to his confession by telling the indorser that he will tell his story but without comment (Poe 705). Within this corresponding ironic tone, the fibber traverses to hu humannessize his actions and plea for justifi wanderion but predicts that what he has already done has destroyed him. Poe describes how these events hurt terrifiedhave torturedhave dest royed him (Poe 705). Poe adds an ironic tone to the story by telling it through the narrators perspective.The narrator is a demented individual and the average reader can non relate to the evil that has erupted inside him. As he begins to rationalize, there is a vast difference between the narrator and the reader leading to the irony that the man feels that this was all a normal 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 employing the various manipulative tools of the storyteller (Badenhausen 487). Finally, Poe also thickens the suspense of the story with the proterozoic foreshadowing that the main character feels that he may harm his wife writing, At length, I even offered her personal violence (Poe 706 ). The greatest metaphor throughout this tale is the char cat.While the narrators wife has been kn make to refer to the dark-haired feline as a witch in inter, the metaphor for Poe is that the cat is not only a superstitious monster but it is also a metaphor for being the narrators ingest personal demon (Poe 706). The recurring events with the moody 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 finally 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 followin g passage raises suspicion that the killing of the first cat was actually the murder of his own wife. Poe writes Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th. 1. sore York, NY W. W. Norton & 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 always the intended victim she was the original, in fact the only victim. Moreover, this inference provides a much much 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 supports the irony that the wifes body was decomposed after 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, Pluto, the erosive cat, who purportedly provokes the narrator into committing his heinous acts of violence but is merely symbolic for the narrators imbedded hatred 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 second black cat appears and is unwelcomed by the narrator. According to Professor Ann Bliss from the University of California, looks remarkably like the original except in one respect it is marked with a pip of white that, for t he 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 good 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 skillfully provides the reader with enough evidence to make conclusions most the motive, sequence of events, and the narrators denial of apparent mental disorder and alcoholism that plagues him.