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 as the reason he abuses his wife and mistreats Pluto.

One night, when the narrator is “much intoxicated,” he grabs the cat with “violence.” The cat retaliates with a mild 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, 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.