Literary Analysis of The Black Cat Essay Example

Did you know that gothic poems come in different forms? Allen Poe's poem The Black Cat is a poem. The story's characters are the Narrator, the Wife, Pluto, and the black Cat. The story is basically about a guy who later got addicted to drinking and that changed his actions completely. I'll discuss my thoughts on the narrator, his addition, his actions, and his motive.

I'll start with my thoughts on the narrator. I believe the narrator was a wonderful man before he was corrupted by his addition. He had an incredible love for animals, and he treated them well and fed them regularly. I believe that something happened at his workplace or at home that prompted him to drink daily. And that's when it started because he was practically never sober, and It was abnormally normal to him. One of the things that struck him was when the cat backed up as if he thought no one was at his side. That irritated him, and when paired with the alcohol, he became enraged. He grabbed the cat and sliced off its eye. That was the first time he assaulted the cat. I don't believe his actions were justified by his heavy drinking because he shouldn't have drunk so much alcohol in the first place. Pluto didn't respond or react in any way; it simply stared at him, doing nothing. For some reason, this irritated him even more. That's when he burst and carried the cat to the cellar, where he hung it. He didn't show any sympathy, and he simply left as if nothing had happened. His house burned down later, the speaker blamed it on the cat, even though it was dead. When he was out drinking one day, he bumped into another black cat that matched Pluto. He asked the pub owner if he could adopt the cat, and the man said he had never seen that cat before. The cat once moved between the speaker's legs, almost causing him to trip and collapse. The speaker was furious once more, even though he wanted the cat in the first place. When he attempted to murder the cat, his wife interfered, and he ended up killing her and hiding her corpse in an old fireplace, which he covered with bricks. I'm puzzled as to why he did it because he wasn't drunk, or at least not drunk enough to justify murdering his wife just for sake of defending the cat. He couldn't find the cat after that; it was as if the cat had vanished, never to be seen again. Days later, the police were called to his house because his wife had gone missing. They didn't notice anything until the speaker pointed out that the fireplace bricks could be simply removed. I believe he did it because he is mentally ill; nobody in their right mind would rat themselves out; it just doesn't make sense. That cat was there, wailing loudly with his wife. I believe the speaker was a mentally sick man who exploited alcohol as a coping strategy.

Now, as a result of his actions, the speaker murdered both his wife and his cat Pluto. In both cases, it was either for no reason at all or the most idiotic of reasons. When he began drinking, his actions shifted 180 degrees. Although I believe that his acts cannot be justified, just because he was intoxicated does not excuse him from killing people. I believe he should be locked up, either in a mental health facility or in prison. I don't believe he should be around anyone, at least not anytime soon. He committed crimes, and they can't even hire a skilled lawyer to defend him because there's no way to defend him without appearing foolish. He was so addicted to wine or whatever he was drinking that he was completely unaware of what he was doing. He never lets it go until he is sober, and even then, he just drinks some more. It was like a habit to him, a pattern that never changed, a routine that controlled how he acted and what he said. What's particularly odd is that we never learned what happened to his previous pets; they simply stopped discussing them.