What is a theme in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat"?

One theme of "The Black Cat" is that of transformation.

Poe's unreliable narrator undergoes both physical and psychological transformations throughout the narrative. From the beginning, this narrator exemplifies a changing personality. Even though he declares himself not mad, he mentions that he will relate what has happened, calling the bizarre incidents a "series of mere household events." In addition, shortly after declaring the events commonplace, the narrator expresses the hope that a "less excitable mind" than his will examine and explain what has happened. 

Further in the story, the narrator admits that his mind has undergone "a radical alteration for the worse," and he has become "more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others" because of the "fiend intemperance." He mistreats the rabbits, the monkey, and even the dog, but not Pluto, the cat. However, it is not long before Pluto also suffers mistreatment. When the cat inflicts a wound on his hand, the narrator feels as though a demon has taken his place, and he reacts by cutting one of the cat's eyes out.

As the story progresses, the narrator becomes more and more abusive until he raises an axe in order to kill the cat. But, because his wife arrests the blow he intends, he pulls his arm from her grip and "burie[s] the axe in her brain." Then, he sets about "deliberately" to dispose of the corpse. The narrator fails to understand that he has transformed into a "monster" himself. 

What is a theme in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat"?

A major theme of "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe is violence. Once again Poe uses the device of the unreliable narrator to weave a tale of horror and violence, stemming from the narrator's craven urge to destroy his family and pets.  Some of the acts of violence include hanging, eye gouging, an incident with an act, to name a few! 

Poe uses the brutality of violence to plumb the depth's of man's character, to see how far man can go in his own self-destruction.  Poe's "The Black Cat" forces the reader to consider the destructive causes of violence in the home as well.

What is a theme in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat"?

This story seems to caution readers about the dangers of alcohol. The narrator says that he suffers from the "Fiend Intemperance" and describes the incredibly deleterious effects on his character as a result of his alcoholism. When he is inebriated, he goes into rages, enacting terrible violence on other living creatures. He seems to lose all sense of who he is, and he even describes the longing to make a loving creature suffer by his own hands. Poe himself had a somewhat addictive personality and struggled with alcohol abuse in his personal life.

Further, the story also seems to illuminate the idea that the weight on one's conscience, created by wicked deeds, could very well cause them to reveal their own guilt. The narrator is so careful to conceal the location of his wife's corpse, and yet he feels compelled to draw the police officers' attention to the precise spot, an action that result in his own capture. It is, perhaps, his own sense of guilt that compels him to risk self-sabotage in this way.

What is a theme in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat"?

Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Black Cat" deals with themes seen in many of his writings: revenge and guilt. The theme of revenge can definitely be seen represented by the cat itself. The narrator's violent actions towards the cat (and later this wife) are paid back by the black cat. According to the narrator, the cat is the reason the narrator gets caught by the police and is being executed. The cat's moaning, shriek from inside the wall is what triggers the narrator's reaction thus allowing the police to find the narrator's wife.

The theme of guilt is also addressed, much like in "The Tell-Tale Heart." Poe leads the reader to believe that there really is no 2nd cat. Once the narrator killed Pluto, the 2nd cat in the story is strictly a manifestation of his guilt. He has literally gotten away with the crime of murdering his wife, but his guilty conscience draws the police to the body walled up in the basement. He alone hears the shrieks of the cat (his guilt).  

What literary devices in "The Black Cat" explain its themes?

Poe uses dramatic irony—when the audience knows or understands something that some character(s) does not—in order to heighten tension as well as to help convey the theme that, often, people simply cannot accept responsibility for their wrongdoings. The narrator of the story, a murderer, says that his purpose is to write down, for all the world to see, "a series of mere household events." There is nothing "mere" and little "household" about the events that he relates! He tortures animals, eventually killing his once-beloved cat, and, then, in his attempt to kill the other cat, he murders his wife instead and then walls up her body in his basement.

To say that these are "mere household events" shows that the narrator either cannot or will not recognize his responsibility as well as how terribly egregious his actions are. We, of course, do (as does the author), and so this creates dramatic irony.

The story makes use of situational irony as well. If someone had just spent a long time torturing and eventually murdering their cat because he could no longer stand the sight of the animal, how much would we expect this person to turn around and get another, similar, cat? Not much, right? Even after the narrator has hanged his first cat, Pluto—as well as been punished with a (symbolically) hellish fire that destroyed all he owned—he still took home a second cat who looked quite similar. This seems to show that, a sick person will compulsively continue to perform violent acts until they are forced to stop (via incarceration or death, for example).

What literary devices in "The Black Cat" explain its themes?

"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 take responsibility for their actions. 

The unreliable narrator in this story is one of its most ingenious techniques. From the first sentence of the story, we are told by the first-person narrator, "I neither expect nor solicit belief." Mad we would be indeed to give it to him then! Therefore the reader must carefully study the narrator's words and read between the lines to find the truth of the tale. The narrator's effusive descriptions of himself in the second paragraph certainly must be taken with a grain of salt; we can see already that before the narrator degenerated into a violent man, he was already incapable of being honest with himself. Throughout the story, every time the narrator has a chance to take full responsibility for what he has done, he either blames something else (alcohol, his "disease," the cat) or he can't quite bring himself to be fully remorseful. Hence we have statements such as, "I blush to confess it," where he doesn't blush at the deed itself, but only at having to confess it, and "I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse," where he admits he does not feel the full weight of his guilt. Even in the very last line of the narrator's "confession," he notes that it was the cat who "seduced me into murder." Poe expects the reader to see through the narrator's biased interpretation of events and to understand that this wicked man, despite his evil deeds, is still unwilling to fully take responsibility for what he did.

The symbols in the story also point to the man's guilt and the way he continues to explain it away. The bas relief of Pluto that appears after the fire is a symbol of the depravity of the narrator, and that it needs to come to light. However, the narrator is able to come up with an explanation that "readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience" of how the relic was created. He is unable to feel complete remorse, indicating he does not accept full responsibility. The second black cat is a symbol, like the first, of the man's guilt and seared conscience. The cat has a blind eye reminiscent of Pluto, and it has a marking on its chest that begins to look more and more like gallows. The narrator despises the cat, showing he has not come to terms with his past sins.

Finally, the narrator seeks to kill the cat, and instead murders his wife. Typical of his inability to own his actions, he hides the body by walling it up in his cellar. But just when it seems that he will once and for all get rid of his conscience and all reminders of his depravity, the cat calls out from behind the brick wall. The irony is  that, although the narrator tried to kill the cat, he doesn't succeed, and the cat ends up giving away the narrator's guilt and sending him to the gallows. This irony reinforces the theme that a wicked person never takes responsibility for his actions, thus requiring outside forces to come into play to hold the person accountable for his evil deeds.

What are the motifs in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat"?

To my mind, the most powerful symbol that there is in this chilling short story by Edgar Allen Poe is the black cat itself, which is obviously important enough to warrant being used for the title. Note how the story progresses it seems to symbolise for the narrator a constant curse that is always present and always dogs his every step - a reminder of his murderous instincts that he cannot forget or ignore:

And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast - whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed - a brute beast to work out for me - for me a man, fashoined in the image of the High God - so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight - an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off - incumbent eternally upon my heart!

Note the way that in the narrator's mind the black cat comes to dominate him psychologically in a somewhat disturbing fashion. As we read on, it is his desire to kill the black cat that leads to his slaughter of his wife, and it is the black cat that at last condemns him to hell for his crimes, as the black cat reveals his murder and therefore condemns him to the gallows.

What are the themes in "The Black Cat"?

Theme is the main idea that runs throughout a story, and usually there are more than one or two.  To create a list for yourself, complete the following:  __________________(name of story) is a tale about________________(the first thing that comes to mind).

The Black Cat is a tale about men vs. women, guilt, torment, love, marriage, murder, pride, and the list can go on and on.

Be sure that you are able to point to evidence in the story that supports your ideas.

Good Luck!

What are the themes in "The Black Cat"?

The criminal mind's psychological ideas are a theme in this story. Poe is making the statement that the pathological aspects of  the mind of a criminal are not as everyone might expect. The idea is that a criminal gets caught, not because of  guilty conscience, but because of his overt pleasure in going against the moral codes of society. In this story, an example of this would be when the he taps on the bricks in front of the police casually, and the reader knowing that it conceals his wife's body.

How do plot, character, view, setting, and style in "The Black Cat" support Poe's theme?

The first step would be to identify the theme.  A theme is a life-truth that the author is trying to share with his/her audience.  For this story, the theme could be "familiarity breeds contempt," "justice will prevail," or "you cannot hide the evil within."  There are certainly others, based on how the story speaks to each reader, but I find these to be prevalent.

If we choose the last theme, "you cannot hide the evil within," you can apply all the literary elements you have identified.

The plot is about a man who changes from being loving to animals and people, to being one consumed by hatred for both.

This, too, covers the character of the man.  He has been loving of animals for his entire life; he meets and marries a woman with similar feelings.  As time goes by, he loses touch with this aspect of himself, loses all patience and compassion, and resorts to torture, and ultimately, committing murder.

Point of view is important with this theme because it is only by being able to look into the very mind and soul of our narrator (from a first person point of view) that we can not only witness his degradation as a person (drunkenness, abuse, etc.), but we can also watch (and listen to) how his obvious psychosis permeates his entire being and destroys the kindness and gentleness that once resided within.

In terms of the setting, a great deal of the dark side of the story occurs in "dark" places.  The establishments he haunts each evening are vile.  It is there that he becomes repeatedly drunk, and it is there that his soul begins its deterioration.  The other specific setting of the story is the basement of his home: a dark, chilling stage on which the narrator plays out his final, maniacal act of hatred, and his attempt to cover his actions.

An author's style is the way he/she writes, how he expresses himself, grammatical structure, and even the specific words he chooses to create his own particular way of writing.

Poe's style is very specific to his writing.  It lends itself to creating horror stories.  Those who remember Alfred Hitchcock will note that his stories, on TV or in the movies, always created a sense of horror. A more contemporary parallel would be Stephen King, though his style diverges greatly between stories such as Carrie, and others like The Shawshank Redemption or The Green Mile. In all of these cases, the stories are told in such a way as to elicit a contrived response: we are to be horrified, even fascinated, and certainly drawn in by the writing style.

When studying The Black Cat, the words Poe chooses to create a sense of suspense, shock and even revulsion stand out: dread, felon, terror, horror, gallows and perverseness (both in capital letters), rabid, and death are words that set a specific mood and purpose for the reader: to bring about horror and fear.  With these words, the theme is clear: you cannot hide the evil that lies within.  With the end of the story, the cat (the one in the title? who knows?) does, in fact, reveal the evil hidden within the man.

How do plot, character, view, setting, and style in "The Black Cat" support Poe's theme?

Although Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat” features a number of settings, its opening setting is a prison cell in which the narrator is incarcerated, awaiting execution (“tomorrow I die”). This setting contributes to the themes of the story in a number of ways, including the following:

• Although the narrator claims in the first paragraph that he is not insane, his very need to make that claim plants the suspicion that he may in factbe imprisoned in the confines of his own deluded mind.
• The narrator’s present physical imprisonment is as nothing compared to the psychological imprisonment he feels throughout the story as he is tormented by his assumptions about the black cat(s).
• The narrator’s obsession with the story’s two black cats leads, eventually, to his literal imprisonment.
• Increasingly, the narrator feels imprisoned by his bizarre relationship with the black cat(s) the story describes.
• The narrator is imprisoned, awaiting execution (probably by hanging), yet it was the narrator himself who deprived his first cat of its freedom and executed the cat by hanging it.
• The narrator, who metaphorically imprisoned the body of his dead wife behind a wall in his house, is now himself literally imprisoned.
• Although the second black cat escaped metaphorical imprisonment behind the wall after the police discovered the murder committed by the narrator, the narrator himself will not escape from his own literal imprisonment. Staring at the rotting, newly discovered corpse of his wife at the very end of the story, the narrator comments,

Upon its head, 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. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

• By the conclusion of the story, it is the cat, in a sense, that has imprisoned the narrator, rather than vice versa.

What are the themes in Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat"?

Guilt

The unnamed narrator of “The Black Cat” describes himself as “moody,” “irritable,” and increasingly “violent.” He lashes out at his wife, “offer[ing] her personal violence” and verbally abusing her with “intemperate language.” Though at this point, he has not begun to harm the cat, he soon reacts to the cat’s bite by cutting its eye out. Much of the story illustrates how the narrator’s guilt at committing this and then even more violent acts eats away at his conscience.

After maiming the black cat, the narrator claims to feel no great remorse. He explains, “I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse … but it was, at best, a feeble and unequivocal feeling.” Nonetheless, he immediately drinks to excess. Despite his claim that he doesn't regret his actions, clearly, if the narrator is desperate to forget his actions, he must feel a sense of guilt.

Unable to stand the continued presence of the cat, he hangs Pluto by a noose. Many of the actions that follow are apparently a result of the narrator’s deep-seated remorse. He sees “the figure of a gigantic cat” with “a rope around [its] neck” on the only wall remaining after his house catches fire. A reasonable explanation for how an image of the cat arrived there is not enough to override the “deep impression” this event has made.

His guilt leads him to attempt to replace the cat, which had once been his close companion. This cat, however, prefers the narrator’s wife, and the narrator finds himself developing an inexplicable sense of rage toward the creature. When he discovers that the cat is also missing an eye, the same one that he had extracted from the original cat’s face, he “long[s] to destroy it.” In an attempt to extinguish this new reminder of his guilt at how he mistreated the first cat, the narrator attempts to kill the new cat with an ax, but when his wife prevents him, he kills her instead.

The narrator’s reaction to killing his wife is remarkably calm; however, his desire to have the policemen find his wife’s body could suggest his subconscious guilt for having committed that murder, as well. The black cat, whose screeching leads the investigators to discover the wife’s body, stands on her corpse as a signal that the narrator will not be able to overcome his guilt but will continue to be reminded of his violent deeds. A psychoanalytic reading of the story might even suggest that the narrator’s act of burial symbolizes his unsuccessful attempt to forget or hide his atrocious crimes.

Insanity and Perversion

The narrator opens the story by claiming he will merely narrate “a series of household events” and that he is not “mad,” despite the strange story he is about to tell. However, the actions and emotions of the narrator are certainly not those of a “sane” person. He claims that his violent behavior is caused by “the spirit of perverseness,” or what he calls “one of the primitive impulses of the human heart” to do what “he knows he should not.”

He describes his urge to kill Pluto, the first black cat, “because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence … because I knew that in doing so I was committing a sin.” The reason he should not desire to act with violence against this innocent cat is exactly what compels him to do it.

This mentality also governs the narrator’s behavior late in the story when he irrationally detests the black cat he purposely sought out to replace the one he murdered. It is the cat’s attachment to him that angers him to the point that he attempts to also kill that cat but, when she intervenes, kills his wife instead.

His madness, driven by his perversion, leads him to tempt fate in the scene with the policemen.

Not only does his apparent lack of remorse and utter calm in burying his wife’s body point to sociopathic tendencies, but his excitement as the investigators inch closer to the scene of his crime suggests the narrator has lost all sense of reason. The narrator’s insanity is further supported by his belief that the second cat is “the Arch-Fiend” who purposely led the narrator to his downfall. At no point in the story are the narrator’s actions motivated by logic, as he has no justifiable reasons to murder his wife or his cat.

Effects of Alcoholism

The narrator of “The Black Cat” quickly admits to being an alcoholic and notes how drastically his addiction changes his behavior. Though he claimed to have been “docile” and “tender” before he started drinking, even describing himself as especially affectionate toward Pluto, once the narrator falls victim to “the Fiend Intemperance,” he “experienced a radical alteration for the worse.” He blames alcohol for his verbal and physical abuse of his wife and his growing anger toward and mistreatment of Pluto.

One night when the narrator is “much intoxicated,” he grabs the cat with “violence,” and the cat retaliates with a small bite. The narrator writes, “The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer.” He attributes his rage to his drunken state, describing his reaction as though he is completely out of control; he becomes someone else. In an alcohol-induced state of madness, the narrator “deliberately cut one of [Pluto’s] eyes from the socket.”

Later in the story, the only thing the narrator can do to avoid his memories and forget his guilt is to drink more, to “drown in wine all memory of the deed[s].” When he finds the second black cat, it is, significantly, perched on “one of the immense hogsheads of gin, or of rum” outside “a den of more than infamy.” Poe here explicitly connects the narrator’s superstitions and fears of the cat – his idea that this is Pluto back to get revenge for his murder – to the narrator’s drinking.