The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

 

The Black Cat

By Edgar Allan Poe

The black cat by Edgar Allan Poe Summary and reflection 

The black cat is one of the most known Poe’s tale because he used different elements like addiction, love, hate, crime, psychology guilt, real and unreal elements, this tale talk about the relationship between the human being and the animals, and the bad consequences of having an addiction, in this case, using alcohol, we can see a big change of behavior of the narrator after get addicted to alcohol, in a first moment, this man love the animals and his wife, he is a happy person loving animals and share with them, specially with a black cat called Pluto, but everything change when he drinks, he stared to have bad feelings and became in a violent person who push his wife and his animals too, one day he drunk a lot and attack his cat very hard, after that the cat had terror by the man; for this reason, it is a tragedy tale because this man became in a crazy person by using alcohol and became in a violent person killing his wife, his cat and try to hurt his second cat that one day in the past he loved a lot. 

Also, he confesses a great love for cats and dogs, both of which, he says, this man marries at a young age and introduces his wife to the domestic joys of owning pets for example birds, goldfish, a dog, rabbits, and a monkey, the narrator has a favorite pet which is a beautiful black cat, named Pluto. In another words the man and his wife loved animals very much but something change. Everything was great the man and the black cat friendship last for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic. One night, during this uncontrollable rage, he spares only Pluto. After returning home quite drunk one night, the narrator lashes out at Pluto. Believing the cat has avoided him the man pulls a knife from his pocket and cuts out one of the cat’s eyes.

In addition, the relationship between this man and the black cat broke and change a lot, the cat feel scare of his master. At first, the man feel bad and regrets by that situation, but this feeling soon gave place to irritation and the man became in a crazy person and takes the cat out in the garden one morning and hangs it from a tree, where it dies, he killed the animal that was loved by him. That same night, his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the man and his wife to go away. The next day, the man returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the figure of a gigantic cat, hanging by its neck from a rope.

In a first moment, this image scares the man, but he determines a logical explanation for it, that someone thought the dead cat into the bedroom to wake him up during the fire, and begins to miss Pluto. A few days later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern. It is the same size and color as the original and is even missing an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the animal's chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to hate, even fear the creature. After a time, the white patch of hair begins to take shape and, to the narrator, forms the shape of the gallows.

After that, one day when this man and his wife were visiting the basement in their new home; the cat gets under its master's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs.     In a fury, the man took an axe and tries to kill the cat but his wife stopped him using her hand. He fell very angry and attacked his wife in her hand, for this reason, he kills her with the axe instead. To hide her dead body he removed a part in the wall, places her dead body there, and repairs the hole. A few days later, when the police show up at the house to investigate the wife's disappearance, they find nothing and the man goes free. The cat that he tried to kill is missing too.

On the last day of the investigation, the man accompanies the police into the basement. They did not find anything. Then, completely confident in his own safety, the man comments on the sturdiness of the building and raps upon the wall he had built around his wife's body. A wailing sound fills the room. The alarmed police tear down the wall and find the dead body of his wife, and on her head, to the horror of the man, is the black cat. Finally this man said: I had walled the monster up within the tomb.

The Black Cat is in many ways a moral tale that deals with the tension between love and hate and that warns of the dangers of alcohol, a substance to which Poe himself was addicted for much of his life. The narrator appears at first to love both his wife and his pets, but by the end of the story his love has turned to forget and even hate, especially to Pluto and the second cat.

In conclusion, that story can show us that madness might happen at any time to any person, the narrator admits the role of alcohol in his behavior. In addition, the arrival of the second cat is closely related to his alcoholism, since he first finds the cat in a seedy drinking establishment. The second cat ultimately serves as the facilitator of justice when it reveals the corpse's hiding place at the end of the tale. This tale is a good example about the consequences of addiction, the addiction can be so danger, it can change all human beings, specially, his behavior and destroy life like this one, we as a future teachers may use this tale to teach about English language, literature and why  we all have to avoid addiction and danger substances.