Black Cat Symbolism

In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart,” “The Black Cat,” “The Raven,” “Annabel Lee,” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” the audience gets an insight into the author’s uniquely pessimistic view on life. For example, in Edgar Allen Poe’s short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” Poe describes the madness and grief of a man planning and executing a beloved old man, whom he befriended. The main character’s methodical and well-thought-out procedure for conducting his murderous plot creates an atmosphere that augments anxiousness. Poe’s use of symbolism, melancholic themes, and motifs is meant to bring forth senses of distress or despair in some cases as well as comfort in other cases for audiences to sympathize with.
Poe’s life was riddled with misfortune and misery and his literary works reflect his innermost …show more content…
In this short story, a man, having killed a black cat once dear to him, becomes deranged and begins to dismantle everything he cherished in life. According to the article, “Symbolism in Edgar Allan Poe's Selected Short Stories,” “Symbols are used to add beauty to work and decorate a work of art and in some cases for purposes such as political, social and cultural.” (Jandaghi & Zohdi). “The Black Cat” uses symbolism to provide the text with the purpose of emphasizing the conflict residing within the main character. In this short story, the main character states that his “wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise” (Owl Eyes), which refers to black cats representing bad luck. One can presume that causing harm to a black cat would make the culprit befall into misfortune. For instance, once the central character eradicates his pet a series of events progressing toward his untimely pronouncement of wrongdoing from the cat’s cry from behind the