Alcohol Abuse In The Black Cat

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Can alcohol really make you go insane? or make you kill your love ones? The Black Cat is a short story told from the narrator himself, who eventually goes berserk and becomes abusive. He has many pets, but really and truly only loves his cat, Pluto, who ends up getting murdered, due to the narrator’s lack of control towards alcohol. This story shows just how big of an influence alcohol can be on one man’s life. The The Black Cat expresses many themes throughout the story, but I would have to say that the main theme is the effects and consequences of alcohol abuse through the characters, plot, and symbols. To begin with, the only character in this story that inquires a drinking problem is the narrator. In the beginning of this story, the narrator is completely sane. He was happy, freshly married, and a loving and caring pet owner. Soon all that starts going down hill once he starts bringing alcohol into the picture, causing him to have mood swings. At …show more content…
Before the story was written, the narrator made it very clear that he was expected to die the following day and wanted to have a chance to tell his story before he passed. As I said once before, the narrator is a die heart animal lover and his favorite pet is his cat Pluto. Once alcohol entered into his life, Pluto was taken out. Someone, such as an alcoholic would have to be completely and utterly insane to do the actions that the narrator did. “One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;-hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bittersweet remorse at my heart;-hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I knew that in doing so I was committing sin…” At this point, the effects of killing Pluto is more of selflessness, than guilt. The narrator could care less about the cat, he more so killed Pluto just because he

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