Comparing Violence In The Black Cat And The Devil And Tom Walker

In “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Prey” by Richard Matheson, and “the Devil and Tom Walker” by Washington Irving, the authors all have a common trend of creating displays of violence resulting in blood or the loss of life in their works to show physical repercussions to hardships or mistakes. In addition to the consequences of physical violence, the characters also go through seemingly inescapable scenarios stemming from their own or other’s emotions. In “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allen Poe, the unnamed main character goes through series of unnatural corollary resulting from his violent and rash outlashes. One dark night after the man was sinfully drinking, the character’s cat Pluto “began to experience the effects of [his] ill …show more content…
Continually through the story, the protagonist Tom is depicted to care about money more than anything else, including his wife. As a consequence, Tom’s wife steals many forms of his property and runs away to the swamp. Uncaring about his wife, Tom sets out with the sole purpose to “get ahold of this property” and states he will “do without the women” (Irving 328). The Devil ends up punishing Tom by killing his wife, leaving “nothing but a heart and liver” in an apron that he finds (Irving 328). The death of his wife is a direct metaphor of how the deficit of care for his wife ends up letting her die. The story continues with Tom doing other various trials for the Devil to prove his trust and worth. Obsessed with the final goal where the Devil entices him to “extort bonds, foreclose mortgages, [and] drive the merchants to bankruptcy”, Tom is snared by his greed and turns to “desperate means” of earning money (Irving 329). Shortly after, Tom’s “bonds and mortgages were found reduced to cinders”(Irving 332) and Tom is never wealthy