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The Black Cat
Technically speaking, in Poe's story "The Black Cat" the first thing that 'happens' is that the narrator informs us he is going to die tomorrow and wishes to unburden his soul tonight by exposing...
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The Black Cat
Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat" was published in 1845. Written in first-person point of view, it is the story of one man's descent into madness as a result of an addiction to alcohol....
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The Black Cat
The narrator of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Black Cat" is writing the story from his prison cell. The man is writing everything down, and thus confessing everything, because he will not live past...
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The Black Cat
The narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat" gradually changes from a man of sane, congenial nature to a psychopathic man. In the beginning of the story, the narrator seems quite genial in...
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Moby Dick
First, according to a search on the Google Ngram viewer, this particular phrase "living life to its fullest" originated in the 1920s, had a few brief years of moderate popularity, and then did not...
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The Black Cat
The description of the cat as "sagacious" adds characterization and tension to the story. "Sagacious" means "wise," particularly in a shrewd, discerning way. That is, sagacious people and animals...
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The Black Cat
"The Black Cat" is a story which reveals the gradual heightening of guilt that stems from one's actions and its effect on the human psyche. At the beginning of the book, the narrator relates the...
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The Black Cat
The first paragraph foreshadows the ending of the narrator's tale. To fully understand where he is and what he is doing, readers must read to the end of the story. The second-to-last sentence...
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The Black Cat
There is irony in Edgar Allan Poe's short story, "The Black Cat," but it is verbal and situational, not dramatic. Dramatic irony occurs in literature when the audience is aware of something that...
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The Black Cat
Depravity is defined as an action or series of actions that are morally corrupt or even wicked. In Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat,” the narrator, who is never named, describes several...
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The Black Cat
In Poe's short story "The Black Cat," the first person narrator, while admitting he killed his wife by taking an axe to her head, nevertheless seems to deny that he is actually guilty of murder. As...
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The Black Cat
Keeping in mind that the narrator is highly unreliable in this story, we can nevertheless note that he describes himself changing for the worse as his alcoholism worsens. As an infant, the narrator...
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The Black Cat
The narrator in "The Black Cat" is an obvious sociopath, incapable of feeling true remorse or guilt. Nevertheless, as he tells his tale, he recounts a regression into further depths of depravity....
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The Black Cat
In "The Black Cat," Poe's first-person narrator reveals his unreliability throughout the tale. First, he calls what he has done--cut out the eye of one cat, hang that cat, try to kill a second...
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The Black Cat
Removing the cat’s eye is the beginning of the end, so to speak, for the narrator. Until that moment, the cat had thus far escaped his drunken cruelty, so this act signifies that the narrator had...
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The Black Cat
Although most people think of a protagonist as the "good guy" or the hero of the story, a protagonist is simply the main character. I have provided a couple of links explaining what a protagonist...
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The Black Cat
It depends on how you interpret the story, which is one of the interesting things about Poe's stories and poems: they can have different meanings for every reader. Personally, I tend to favor the...
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The Black Cat
The title of the story "The Black Cat," though simple, is rich in meaning when considered in light of the story's literal and figurative interpretations. On a literal plane, the story features not...
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The Black Cat
The first thing that comes to mind when looking for remorse in The Black Cat is when the narrator hangs Pluto. After he hangs the cat, he says that he experienced "a half-sentiment that seemed, but...
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The Black Cat
The night the narrator hung Pluto, his house and everything he owned went up in flames. He, his wife, and a servant barely made it out of the house with their lives, but everything else was...
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The Black Cat
As an unreliable narrator, the narrator of "The Black Cat" sets up his entire story to try to excuse his actions, despite the ruse of trying to "unburden his soul" before his execution. The sin of...
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The Black Cat
A "Gothic Romance" is a story that adheres to certain conventions and techniques that represent its genre. In this sense, a "romance" is not necessarily a love story but refers to stories of...
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The Black Cat
The Gothic genre is known for a few common themes. One is an element of the supernatural, some unexplained influence or phenomenon. This is definitely present in the story, as the narrator is...
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The Black Cat
One word sums up the narrator in Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Black Cat": sociopath. A sociopath doesn't respect laws or social rules, disregards others' rights, displays emotional and violent...
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The Black Cat
"The Black Cat" incorporates a number of literary devices, including an unreliable narrator, symbolism, and irony, to reinforce its theme that wicked people cannot feel remorse because they do not...
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The Black Cat
In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat," the narrator attributes his violent behavior to alcoholism. He states that the first black cat, Pluto, was an especially beloved pet, but over the course of a...
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The Black Cat
The short answer? Alcohol. The narrator describes how his "general temperament and character -- through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance -- had (I blush to confess it) experienced a...
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The Black Cat
In the exposition of "The Black Cat," the unreliable narrator lays down some things he feels readers should know about the story and himself as a person. He says that he has been known since...
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The Black Cat
Edgar Allen Poe loves to use dashes in his work. He uses them frequently in "The Black Cat," along with other works such as "The Pit and the Pendulum" and "The Tell-Tale Heart." Indeed, these...
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The Black Cat
At the very beginning of The Black Cat, the narrator tells his readers that he is currently awaiting his own execution for the crimes he committed. He does not specify where exactly he is, but I...
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The Black Cat
At the very beginning of the story, the narrator tells the reader: "But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul." The narrator never expressly states that he is in prison, but it can...
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The Black Cat
Although Pluto had previously escaped the narrator's drunken fury, one night he was not so lucky. He had taken to avoiding the narrator because of his drunkenness, which the narrator was conscious...
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The Black Cat
When the narrator first meets the second black cat, he describes it by saying: "It was a black cat - a very large one - fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but...
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The Black Cat
Toward the end of the story "The Black Cat" the narrator does more than just tap on the brick. He describes his actions as "rapping heavily" upon the brick wall with a cane. At this point, the...
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The Black Cat
The main conflict of The Black Cat is between the narrator and the titular black cat, named Pluto by the narrator. The two start out as being very close, but as the narrator grows older and becomes...
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The Black Cat
When Pluto started to avoid the narrator in "The Black Cat," the narrator became angry. When the narrator first started taking his drunken anger out on his wife and pets, Pluto managed to avoid it,...
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The Black Cat
The narrator makes it plain that he loves animals and had wonderful relationships with the many that he kept as pets until alcohol and his addiction began to destroy his life. He grows increasingly...
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The Black Cat
"The Black Cat" is permeated with sadism. The narrator, though he tries to frame himself as normal, does what would commonly be considered unspeakable things that indicate he is a sociopath. First,...
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The Black Cat
The narrator changes from a quiet, compassionate child to a madman, prone to uncontrollable fits of rage and--in his own words--perversion in adulthood. He tells us that even from infancy, he was...
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The Black Cat
Of the two stories, "The Black Cat" is definitely more Gothic, but "The Lottery" also uses elements of the Gothic genre. Both stories point to the perverse nature of humanity, but Poe's story does...
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The Black Cat
In "The Black Cat," after the narrator cuts an eye out of the black cat that follows him around then hangs him in the garden, his house catches fire and burns down--except for the wall directly...
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The Black Cat
The narrator suggests that the main purpose in telling the story is to "unburthen [his] soul." He suggests that it would be impossible for anyone to believe his story and that even he would be...
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The Black Cat
The narrator is telling the story because of the terrible burden of guilt he feels over his crimes. One of these is of course the murder of his wife but he feels perhaps just as guilty about his...
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The Black Cat
The murderer and narrator of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Black Cat is considerably more concerned about his murder of his once-beloved cat Pluto than he is about the death of his wife. The...
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The Black Cat
As the narrator describes, from his very youngest years he was extremely tender and thoughtful towards other people. He noted that he was such a kind-hearted and gentle soul that his boyhood...
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The Black Cat
A thesis statement is merely your answer to a question about the story, so what sorts of questions about perverseness can you ask about the story? What triggered the narrator's perversity--alcohol...
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The Black Cat
In the opening paragraph of Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat," the narrator states that his "immediate purpose is to place before the world ... a series of mere household events." In...
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The Black Cat
In "The Black Cat," there is really only one woman: the narrator's wife. Unfortunately, we do not see much of her as an individual character, but she does serve an important purpose. The first time...
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The Black Cat
The story starts out with a boy who preferred the company of animals to the company of his peers. When he grows up, he finds a woman who feels the same way and they get married. One of the pets...
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The Black Cat
The second cat represents a number of things, including perhaps what might be considered an "inner demon" of the narrator. The cat resembles Pluto in that it is missing one eye but it also has a...
