Examples Of Foreshadowing In The Black Cat

Edgar Allan Poe is renowned for his poetry and short stories, especially those that fall in the category of mystery. Poe’s life was exceedingly unfortunate. He was orphaned at a young age, had to drop out of the University of Virginia because of financial problems, and was removed from West Point. A number of his loved ones died from tuberculosis, including his mother and wife. Poe struggled with depression and alcoholism, mirroring the protagonists in his works. Poe’s works follow the theme of death and employ heavy use of suspense and foreshadowing. A good amount of Poe’s works can be classified under the grotesque. The grotesque focuses on the human body, especially when it is distorted or exaggerated, and draws empathy and disgust. Empathy …show more content…
By mention his penchant for animals, writing that he was “especially fond of” them, the narrator foreshadows his animal abuse. He “not only neglected, but ill-used” his pets. He loved animals because of “something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute” and proceeds to kill Pluto because he knows he can, because Pluto loved him in the unassuming way an animal does. This foreshadowing extends to his wife, despite that he was “ happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own,” he “offered her personal violence” as well. Their relationship reaches an end when he struck her with the ax and “She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.” Within the foreshadowing, the narrator seems unable to draw conclusions between cause and effect. He states that he is “above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity,” insteads draws his up his own conclusions, no matter how …show more content…
The titular character, a black cat, symbolizes bad luck and the narrator’s wife alluded to their superstition that “all black cats as witches in disguise.” The second’s cat white fur depicted the gallows, which draws attention to the theme of death, especially death by hanging. Despite the difference of the white fur, both cats in the story are strikingly similar, and they both lack an eye. Popular legend says that cats have nine lives, and the story seems to suggest this notion of reincarnation. Since black cats symbolize witchcraft, and witches are often burned, the fire that burns the narrator’s house down carries its own weight in symbolism as well. The fire occurs after Pluto’s murder, so it could be a punishment for killing a cat named after the god of the underworld that happens to symbolize bad luck and witches. The fire could also symbolize the destruction of the narrator’s mental health, as at this point, his demeanor changes completely. “The destruction was complete;” everything good in his person was burned, and the only aspects left were perverse. After the first, the wall with the image of Pluto was the only part to survive. At the end of the story, he buries his wife in a wall, and that wall is what ultimately sends him to his