that the cat had loved him and “had given (him) no reason of offence.”

After the protagonist kills his cat, a fire breaks out in his bedroom and burns down the house. His “entire worldly wealth (is) swallowed up.” The protagonist says that he is “above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect” but, in saying so, implies that the fire may be some manner of cosmic or divine justice. This might fit our earlier definition of justice in that the action of killing his cat has been met with a consequence (the burning down of his house and the loss of all his possessions) that might seem fitting and appropriate.

Later in the story, the protagonist finds another cat which looks strikingly similar to the one he killed. This cat follows the protagonist, but yet again he grows to dislike the cat and has violent feelings towards it. The protagonist is unable to hurt this second cat, however, because it reminds him so much of the “shame” of his “former deed of cruelty” and because he is paralyzed “by absolute dread of the beast.”

This “beast” comes to haunt the protagonist’s every move, “with a pertinacity ... difficult ... to comprehend.” The second cat leaves the protagonist “no moment alone,” and the protagonist, being constantly reminded of his “former deed of cruelty,” becomes overwhelmed with “the darkest and most evil of thoughts,” so much so that “Evil thoughts (become his) sole intimates.” The protagonist is driven mad and eventually murders his wife.

The misery heaped upon the protagonist by the second cat is arguably an example of justice in that the madness that consumes the protagonist seems a fitting and appropriate consequence for the cruelty of which he has been guilty. One might also argue, however, that the protagonist’s madness and the fire which destroys his home are not consequences which happen as a result of his actions but merely unrelated events. In this case, there is no justice in the story, cosmic, divine, or otherwise, and the protagonist merely becomes a hapless victim of his own uncontrollable madness.

"The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe begins with the narrator's announcement that tomorrow he is going to die, yet he claims that he is the one who has been tortured and ultimately destroyed by the events that happened before now and which he is about to tell us. From this revelation we understand that the narrator is unwilling to take blame for anything that happened to put him in the position he is in today; we also suspect he may not be sane.

While trying to kill his cats (yes, more than one), he also killed his wife and made deliberate calculations to bury her.

By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brick-work. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right.

The narrator may not be a sane man, but he is deliberate and calculating when he commits what he calls a "hideous murder" and hides his wife's body in the cellar. He has been tried and sentenced to die for this premeditated crime, so to that extent the justice system worked. If there is a flaw in the justice system, it is that it failed to recognize this man's insanity and will punish him for something which he cannot help. Perhaps the only real truth about the justice system in this case is that someone is going to pay for the wife's death.