be taken at face value. In "The Black Cat" the man tells us that up until the events he's about to relate took place, he was always known for the mildness of his disposition and his kindness to people and animals. He then attributes his mental metamorphosis to alcohol. The outside world slowly transforms itself into a nightmare, not merely in a figurative sense, but in the manner of events and actions that are cut off from reality and would only take place in a literal dream. The man's identity—whether it was originally benign or not—begins to dissolve as he commits one criminal act after another for no reason.

The cold-blooded killing of Pluto is without explanation. When the man cut out Pluto's eye, as cruel and sadistic as this was, he at least gave the rationale that Pluto had "inflicted a small wound on my hand with his teeth." But when he murders the cat, there is no obvious immediate cause, and he says he did so with tears streaming down his eyes, and not because Pluto had offended him but for the opposite reason, because he knew the cat had loved him and had done nothing wrong. In becoming psychotic, the man has lost the inner self he had known, and his response to the outer world, which he sees as hostile, is to inflict cruelty upon an animal.

The events that follow are increasingly dreamlike and surreal. A fire breaks out and the gigantic image of the hanged cat appears in relief on the wall of the house that is left standing. The narrator gives a bizarre explanation that someone must have cut the dead cat from the tree and thrown it through his bedroom window to awaken him, and then the action of the fire and the ammonia released by it caused the body of the cat to be impressed upon the wall (which just happens to have been freshly plastered and is still wet) and spread out into a huge image. The appearance of the second cat, which is a Doppelganger of Pluto, ultimately causes the final catastrophe when the man murders his wife and walls her up in the cellar, unknowingly allowing the cat to enter the tomb and then give him away when the authorities come to investigate. That the narrator does not seem to recognize the enormous improbability that this identical twin of Pluto (complete with a missing eye) would appear to him, or would even exist, is a further sign of his mental instability, of his living in a fantasy world.

The man's ontological insecurity—his loss of inner self, his inner emptiness, his feeling of being marginalized and cut off from the real world and existing in a dream—is a psychological explanation for the bizarre narrative and the horrors that are taking place, if they actually are taking place and are not imaginary. On a less technical level, and one which typifies the literature of Poe's time, the question of illusion versus reality lies at the heart of the story. We have no way of knowing how much of the action is real and how much a dream, as in other Romantic tales like those of the German writers Ludwig Tieck and E.T.A. Hoffmann, which formed the background of Poe's work and were influential upon him. It is as if life itself has become an ongoing fairy-tale, though one not suitable for children. And as Poe himself asked in his poetry: "Is all we see and seem / But a dream within a dream?"

Ontological is defined as the essence of self or the "nature of being." R.D. Lang's theory of ontological security (or the reverse of insecurity) as expressed in The Divided Self holds that a person's sense of self is formed beginning at or near birth and depends on the behavior of and treatment received from the first "other" in a baby's life, that being the parents and other caregivers. If this first encounter with the other is of kindness, gentleness, and other supportive, loving and encouraging qualities, then the individual will be ontologically secure. If the other delivers the opposites of the above or something on the order of disdain, scorn, sarcasm, etc., then the individual will be ontologically insecure.

Edgar Allen Poe sets up the narrator of "The Black Cat" as having had a childhood defined by his weakness (which may have been innate according to innatist theory) and his parent's and school mates' responses and reactions to his weaknesses. This perfectly fits in with Lang's theory of ontological security/insecurity as Poe is implicitly establishing a direct link between the narrator's childhood and interactions with his "others" and his subsequent behavior as an adult who first lashed out under the influence of strong alcohol.

[Read Jess Lang's essay "Ontological Security" for further detail on R.D. Lang's theory of ontological security.]