whether the second cat is the reincarnation of the first or whether it is a demon, as the narrator seems to suggest at the end.

Justice. In Gothic stories, sins of the past come back to haunt the perpetrator. In this story, the narrator tries to hide his murder, but the cat ensures that he does not get away with it.

Revenge. Tied closely to justice is the idea of revenge. Those who commit atrocities set in motion a cycle of revenge that must be fulfilled. That happens when the narrator hangs the first cat. The second cat executes revenge on the man for his previous crimes.

Unreliable Narrator. A narrator who does not fully grasp the events as they unfold is typical in Gothic stories. The narrator in this story, while claiming to be sane, is obviously a sociopath, and the reader must understand that not everything he says is believable.

Ambiguity and Ambivalence. Gothic characters can display ambivalence, and events can be ambiguous. The narrator is constantly telling us in this story that he is half-remorseful or that he cannot fully repent of the evil he has done. The story leaves questions in the reader's mind as to whether the cat was only a cat, how the gallows formed on its chest, and whether it purposefully allowed itself to be walled in so that it could expose the narrator's sin.

Moral Closure: The ending of a Gothic tale should clearly declare that wickedness will not prosper. The narrator of "The Black Cat" is to be hanged the following day, showing that he has not been able to get away with murder.

There is much more to Gothic Romance than just horror. "The Black Cat" strongly embodies many Gothic characteristics.

The enotes to Gothic literature make mention of the element of "privileged irrationality and passion over rationality and reason."  This chaos of irrationality seems to be what moves the plot of "The Black Cat" by Poe and is its most salient feature.  Even the narrator suggests his own abnormality:

Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the commonplace....Some calmer intellect, more logical, less excitable than mine will perceive...nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

That the narrator is "friends" with the cat in the beginning, yet he "maltreats" it by "a fiendish malevolence" in his "frame" which induces him to cut one of the cats eyes out points to his "privileged irrationality."  In a chaos of confusion, the next day he feels some remorse for his act.  Nevertheless, he subsequently hangs the cat

because I knew that it had loved me and had given me no reason of offense--hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin, a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul....

After his house is ruined by fire, the disturbed narrator returns to the ruins to see the cat in relief: cast in what had been freshly spread plaster.  This "phantasm" of the cat remains with the narrator, who takes in another black cat.  One day, however, in the chaos of his mind, he becomes angered at the second cat who causes him to trip.  With an axe, he attempts to kill the cat; instead, his hand is stopped by his wife.

Goaded by this interference into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain.  She fell dead upon the spot without a groan.

This act is surely one of chaotic irrationality.  It is horrific, too.  When he cannot find the cat to rid himself of it, the narrator worries no more.  Nor is he worried by the several visits by the police. Irrationally, the narrator boasts of his sturdily constructed walls, and a shriek is heard.  Upon tearing down the wall on which the narrator has rapped, the police discover the decayed remains of the woman and the black cat whom the narrator describes,

with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman....

There are a number of characteristics associated with gothic literature or "gothic fiction." One source lists some of these elements (found in Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto) as a "threatening mystery...an ancestral curse" along with "hidden passages and oft-fainting heroines."

Another source notes that gothic novels were...

...set in dark, mysterious castles amid an atmosphere of terror and gloom.

Professor Robert Harris includes in his list:

• setting in a castle
• an atmosphere of mystery and suspense
• an ancient prophecy
• omens, portents, visions
• supernatural and otherwise inexplicable events
• high, even overwrought emotion
• women in distress
• women threatened by a powerful, impulsive, tyrannical male
• the metonymy of gloom and horror

The characteristics to be found in Poe's "The Black Cat" would include high emotion on the narrator's part; supernatural and/or inexplicable events; a woman in distress; gloom and horror; and, an atmosphere of suspense.

The narrator's emotional state becomes overwrought as his drinking problem grows beyond his control:

I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. 

And then...

The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body...

In terms of supernatural and/or inexplicable events, several elements are present in the story. First there is the half-joking suggestion by the narrator's wife as to the supernatural association between black cats and witches. While this may only hint at the otherworldly, there are other examples. After the narrator hangs Pluto, the house catches fire and somehow, on a wall, there is the image of the murdered cat:

I approached and saw...upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat...There was a rope about the animal's neck.

Strangely, when the narrator brings home a second cat, this animal, too, is about the size Pluto was, and is also missing an eye. However, while Pluto was completely black, the new cat has a white patch on its chest‚—frighteningly for the narrator, in the shape of the gallows.

The woman in distress is the speaker's wife: at first he is only verbally abusive, but he becomes crueler, and eventually kills her without pause because she stops him from killing the second cat.

Besides the narrator's horrific acts, he also experiences dark feelings (such as gloom and horror) when near the second cat:

I am almost ashamed to own—that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened...

An atmosphere of suspense builds throughout the story, but comes into full view after the man has buried his wife's body behind a bricked up wall. He is boastful to the police as to the strength of the walls, and arrogant within himself as to what a fine job he has done in concealing his crime. He even knocks on the walls with his cane, increasing the suspense in the reader as to whether this monster will get away with his crime or be caught:

The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

These are the elements that contribute to the gothic nature of Poe's short story.

Additional source:

Adventures in English Literature, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers: Orlando, 1985.

The darker side of human nature is clearly involved in "The Black Cat" as it involves sadistic actions and even murder.  The narrator writes that he has been fond of animals,

There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere man.

Yet, when he begins to drink, the "fiend intemperance" causes a "radical alteration for the worse" in his nature. As the narrator allows his darker side to become active, he maltreats the animals.  One night after he returns intoxicated, he fancies that the cat "avoided my presence."  Seizing the cat he puts out its eye with a penknife!  Here the narrator exhibits another gothic element: "privileged irrationality and passion over rationality" as stated in the enotes on Gothic elements.  And, this irrationality is pivotal to the plot of this narrative. 

This irrationality in the narrator becomes chaotic as "the spirit of perverseness" dominates and the narrator's actions become horrific.  One morning "in cold blood" the narrator hangs the cat recounting that he "knew it had love me and had given me no reason of offense."  On the night of his cruel action, the narrator's house burns. Returning to the house, he finds a bizarre "bas-relief" in a portion of wall where there was fresh plaster.  There the cat with the noose about its neck had been imprisoned.

As he continues his debauchery, the narrator espies a black cat sitting on a cask of liquor.  When he asks the owner of the establishment in which he has been drinking if he can purchase the cat, the owner says he knows nothing about this cat.  So, the narrator takes it home, noticing that one eye is also missing in this cat.  He feels an aversion for this cat, but avoids killing it as he fears the cat, as it inspires "horror and terror" in me.  There is something preternatural about this cat, another common aspect of gothic tales.

As the narrator's irrationality increases, he imagines that the cat never left him alone, even putting itself upon his face. Finally,

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed.  Evil thoughts became my sole intimates,  the darkest and most evil of thoughts.

One day as he descends his stairs, the cat gets underfoot, "nearly throwing [him] headlong."  At this point, the narrator becomes incensed and grabs the cat, "uplifting an axe."  But, when his wife stays his hand, "goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal," the narrator puts the axe into her head and kills her.  His chaotic actions done, the narrator decides to wall "it" up in the house in order to hide "the hideous murder accomplished."  So, he walls in the corpse.  Afterwards, he cannot locate the cat, yet he sleeps "soundly."  Much like the insane narrator of "Tell-Tale Heart" the narrator, in his "mere frenzy of bravado," boasts of his walls when the police come. 

When they again return, he takes them around.  He tells the men he is glad to have "allayed" their suspicions, striking the walls hardily.  As he does so, there is a scream,

utterly anomalous and inhuman--a howl, a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph...from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation. 

The police respond, tearing down the wall and the corpse falls.  There on its head, sits the cat!

I would start off by observing that this excellent story uses a classic hallmark of Gothic literature: the unreliable narrator. This is of course a Gothic element that Poe uses elsewhere in his shorter fiction to great effect in stories such as "The Tell-Tale Heart." Consider how the narrator introduces himself and tries to present himself as a reasonable, thining individual:

For the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad I am not--and very surely do I not dream.

Poe deliberately makes us question the reliability of such a narrator and whether indeed the credibility of the narrator given what he tells us about himself and his drunkenness can be trusted.

Secondly, there is reference to maddened rage and violence, especially in the acts of anger perpetrated by the narrator. Consider how he reacts to being slightly bitten by the cat:

The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer... I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!

The excess of emotion and anger that is here refered to is a key feature of Gothic literature, as we enter the dark realms of the psyche of man and see all the horrendous deeds and acts he is capable of doing.

Lastly, consider the supernatural elements of this story, in particular in the way that Pluto is somehow "resurrected" in the form of a new cat which, like Pluto, lacks one of its eyes. The only difference is the white mark which represents the "gallows." This, combined with the figure of the "gigantic cat" that is left on the wall after the fire and the way in which the cat is shut up with the body of his dead wife clearly hints at supernatural happenings that are beyond our reason or comprehension.