Edgar Allan Poe's story “The Black Cat” is a truly morbid tale. The narrator begins as an animal lover whose favorite pet is a large black cat named Pluto. As time passes, however, the narrator falls into the habit of drunkenness, and both his wife and his pets feel the effects of his increasingly nasty disposition. One day, in a fit of drunken violence, the narrator cuts out Pluto's eye with a penknife. The cat recovers but understandably avoids the narrator after this, fleeing in fear whenever he approaches.
The narrator becomes more and more irritated by the cat's behavior (and his own guilt), and he finally hangs poor Pluto from a tree in his garden. That night the narrator's house starts on fire. He and his wife escape, but when he returns to the property, he sees the impression of a large cat with a rope...
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around its neck on the plaster wall where his bed had been. He decides that someone must have thrown the dead cat through the window in an attempt to rouse him during the fire. The flames interacted with the body to create the image. Yet the thing haunts him.
Time passes again, and the narrator sinks further into depravity. He meets another black cat in a tavern. The animal responds to the narrator's petting with purrs and follows him home. This cat looks almost exactly like Pluto (it, too, has only one eye) except for a patch of white fur around its neck (resembling a noose). The animal is overly affectionate towards the narrator, scarcely letting him alone for a moment. The narrator, still guilty over what he had done to Pluto, does not lay a hand on the cat. When it trips him on the cellar stairs, however, the narrator grabs an ax to kill the animal. His wife prevents him, so he turns the ax on her instead, killing her instantly.
The narrator is now left with the problem of what to do about his wife's body. He walls it up in the cellar, certain that he has hidden it beyond detection. He is pleased with himself and also pleased that the black cat seems to have disappeared. Then, four days later, the police arrive to search the house. The narrator brags a bit down in the cellar, still happy with his handiwork, and he taps on the cellar wall. From the other side arises a shrill cry. The police tear down the wall to find the black cat and the narrator's wife's body. The narrator has walled up the cat without realizing it, and the creature takes its revenge by revealing the narrator's guilt.