Madness comes in many forms, and Poe does his best to showcase the flaws in the human brain. In two of his short stories, “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart”, Edgar Allan Poe illustrates two men who go mad over small things. The narrator of “The Black Cat” starts down a dark path of alcohol and rage. He believes that his first cat Pluto is avoiding him and retaliates by cutting out its eye. Later he becomes increasingly more murderous when he sees the shape of the gallows on a new cat’s fur and on the wall of his house that didn’t crumble. He snaps and tries to kill the cat after it trips him in the cellar, but his wife intervenes and is killed instead. His madness takes over and he dismembers her body, hiding it behind a panel
…show more content…
He starts off in the story as a decent human being. He loves dogs and cats, marries young, and introduces his wife to the joy of owning pets. He chooses a black cat, Pluto, as his favorite, stating that it is his “favorite pet and playmate” (706). Then the alcoholic tendencies set in. The narrator begins to suffer from vicious mood swings. The narrator notices as he thinks to himself, “I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others” (706), but he doesn’t mistreat Pluto yet. Its not until he comes home in a drunken rage that he takes it out on the poor cat. The narrator, believing that Pluto had been avoiding him, cuts out one of the cat’s eyes and feels very little remorse the next morning upon waking up. He says that the feelings of guilt and horror are “at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched” (706). That one drunken act starts his heart on a dark path that he can not veer away from. The cat, of course, runs away from the narrator any time he approaches, and at first he is saddened by the fact that Pluto no longer loves him. Though the feelings of sorrow are soon replaced irritation until anger consumes the man once more. Madness ensues and the narrator cold-heartedly slips a noose around the cat’s neck and hangs it from the tree. There is no …show more content…
One day he and his wife go down into the cellar where he almost trips over the cat. He lashes out with an axe, his intent to kill clearly stated: “I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished” (709). But it doesn’t go as he wanted it to. His wife, who he says “was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers” (709), stops him from harming the cat, and once again the madness hits hard. He takes his arm from her grip and buries the axe into her brain instead. He then proceeds to cut up her body into small pieces, something that a sane person could never do. The narrator hides what’s left of his wife in the walls of the cellar, and after he finishes the wall doesn’t show “the slightest appearance of having been disturbed” (710). Now he is free to take care of the cat but it was gone. His mind is at ease until a few days pass and police show up at his door. They search his house and find nothing. The maddened narrator turns the meeting into a show, tapping on the wall in front of his mutilated wife. He almost got away with it but inhuman screams and howls came from behind the wall. The police chip away the wall and find the corpse and the black and white cat, “the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder”
He starts off in the story as a decent human being. He loves dogs and cats, marries young, and introduces his wife to the joy of owning pets. He chooses a black cat, Pluto, as his favorite, stating that it is his “favorite pet and playmate” (706). Then the alcoholic tendencies set in. The narrator begins to suffer from vicious mood swings. The narrator notices as he thinks to himself, “I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others” (706), but he doesn’t mistreat Pluto yet. Its not until he comes home in a drunken rage that he takes it out on the poor cat. The narrator, believing that Pluto had been avoiding him, cuts out one of the cat’s eyes and feels very little remorse the next morning upon waking up. He says that the feelings of guilt and horror are “at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched” (706). That one drunken act starts his heart on a dark path that he can not veer away from. The cat, of course, runs away from the narrator any time he approaches, and at first he is saddened by the fact that Pluto no longer loves him. Though the feelings of sorrow are soon replaced irritation until anger consumes the man once more. Madness ensues and the narrator cold-heartedly slips a noose around the cat’s neck and hangs it from the tree. There is no …show more content…
One day he and his wife go down into the cellar where he almost trips over the cat. He lashes out with an axe, his intent to kill clearly stated: “I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished” (709). But it doesn’t go as he wanted it to. His wife, who he says “was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers” (709), stops him from harming the cat, and once again the madness hits hard. He takes his arm from her grip and buries the axe into her brain instead. He then proceeds to cut up her body into small pieces, something that a sane person could never do. The narrator hides what’s left of his wife in the walls of the cellar, and after he finishes the wall doesn’t show “the slightest appearance of having been disturbed” (710). Now he is free to take care of the cat but it was gone. His mind is at ease until a few days pass and police show up at his door. They search his house and find nothing. The maddened narrator turns the meeting into a show, tapping on the wall in front of his mutilated wife. He almost got away with it but inhuman screams and howls came from behind the wall. The police chip away the wall and find the corpse and the black and white cat, “the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder”