In "The Black Cat", how do the narrator's feelings differ between killing the cat and his wife?
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. Therefore, when he kills his first cat, Pluto, he is somewhat horrified at his deed, and for months it bothers him with a "half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse." Still, as he reports it, he is not satisfied with himself after killing the cat, and he plunges further into alcoholism.
After killing his wife, however, no such half-sentiments plague him. Instead, he is intent on covering up his crime, and when he has carefully hidden the corpse behind a brick wall in the cellar, he is pleased with himself, stating, "I felt satisfied that all was right." He only resolves after that to kill the cat, and when he believes it has run away, he...
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experiences great relief. He begins to believe that his future happiness is guaranteed and reports, "The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little." Strangely, he is actually proud of his cover-up, so much so that he draws the police who are investigating his wife's disappearance into the cellar to further confirm to himself his skill at obfuscating his crime. He feels absolutely no guilt at this point--only pride in successfully hiding the body.
The difference in the way the narrator reacts to the two killings, if we can trust his account, reflects his further descent into depravity to the point where he is not only not quite capable of feeling remorse for his evil deed, but in the end completely incapable of feeling guilt. However, keeping in mind that the narrator in the story is highly unreliable, one might question whether he actually feels any level of remorse over the death of the cat and is troubled by it only because his crime is apparent to his neighbors and his wife. When his later crime is fully hidden, on the other hand, he feels comfortable with it. Such reactions are consistent with sociopathic attitudes and behavior.
Was the narrator in Poe's "The Black Cat" more concerned about his wife's murder or the cat's?
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 narrator's wife is almost an afterthought, a congenial partner who shares her husband's affinity for animals -- an affinity that succumbs to his alcoholism. While the narrator mentions his wife in positive tones, it is Pluto to whom he reserves his fondest memories. Early in this macabre tale of madness, the narrator draws a crucial distinction between his relationships to animals and to humans:
"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."
This comment provides fairly solid evidence of the narrator's concern for the cat he will first maim and then murder. He is more than a little smitten with Pluto, whom he describes as "a remarkably large and beautiful animal . . . and sagacious to an astonishing degree," and whom he categorizes as his "favorite pet and playmate." No such fawning verbiage is applied to his wife. Indeed, the narrator even notes that the transformation in his demeanor caused by his alcoholism that manifests itself in violent outbursts directed against his wife and his other pets does not extend to Pluto:
"My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but illused them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog . . ."
Additional evidence of the narrator's preference for the cat over his wife is provided in his descriptions of his reactions to their respective deaths. After initially maiming the cat by cutting out one of his eyes, he writes that "I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity." He laments his evil deed, suggesting that his punishment will include eternal damnation. How does he react to his murder of his wife? Read the following passage:
"Goaded by the 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 hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body."
While much of The Black Cat involves the narrator's sense of self-loathing and remorse over his treatment of Pluto, his murder of his wife warrants little more than a hasty burial behind a wall. There is no sense of remorse, no expressions of regret for his actions in contrast to the many such expressions of remorse regarding the cat. For these reasons, it is safe to conclude that the narrator is more concerned about the cat than about his wife.