What similarities exist between "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado"?
Like many Poe stories, "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado" share many commonalities. Below are just a few.
1. Both possess unreliable narrators, a common Poe element. "The Black Cat's" narrator admits that he is under the influence of alcohol and possibly even insanity. He once loved animals but then begins to torture them for no apparent reason. Similarly, "The Cask of Amontillado" features a narrator, Montresor, who seeks revenge upon Fortunato who does not even seem to know that he has done anything wrong. Montresor is sane enough to plot out an intricate murder; yet he does not even specifically mention Fortunato's "sin" or explain to Fortunato before his death why he is being killed.
2. Both stories involve live burials in which creatures/humans are bricked up behind a wall. In "Cat," the narrator tries to hide his wife's body behind a brick...
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wall that he creates after accidentally killing her, but he also ends up trapping the cat behind the wall. In "Cask," Montresor knowingly "buries" Fortunato behind a brick wall while he is still alive.
3. Both stories to involve murder. While the narrator in "Cat" does not set out to kill his wife, he certainly shows no regret after he buries an axe in her brain, and Montresor plot his murder of Fortunato for weeks.
4. Both stories involve somewhat of an obsession with alcohol. The narrator of "Cat" states that his disease is alcohol and that that is what causes him to abuse animals in the first place. Likewise, besides the title of "Cask," obsession with unique wines leads him to let down his guard with Montresor who uses Fortunato's wine interest to kill him.
Compare the theme of perversity in "The Black Cat," "The Imp of the Perverse," and "The Cask of Amontillado."
"The Imp of the Perverse" is evidently intended as a scientific explanation by Poe of the innate human tendency to do the wrong thing—to perform some action simply because we know it is improper, dangerous, or destructive. In Poe's description it sounds much like a manifestation of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The other two stories to which you refer, "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado," show the horrifying results of this obsessive urge which Poe analyzes in technical-sounding language in "The Imp of the Perverse."
In "The Black Cat," the narrator abuses and then murders Pluto not because he hates him, but, as he tells us himself, precisely because the cat has loved him and done him no harm. He describes himself in tears as he is slipping the noose round the cat's neck, committing this cold-blooded act of sadism against his own will, as it were. In part, the narrator attributes his cruelty to substance abuse, admitting that he is an alcoholic and claiming that in his earlier life he was noted for the mildness of his disposition and his love for animals. It is not clear if Poe intends this to be taken at face value, or if he is deliberately presenting it as an "unreliable narrator" phenomenon. The man is under a compulsion to enact his "perversity" and not only to kill others—first the cat and then his wife (and in real life those who murder people often do start out by killing animals)—but to destroy himself.
In "The Cask of Amontillado," though the act of walling a man up and thus asphyxiating him in an underground chamber is clearly an act of madness, there at least seems to be a rationale for it: the "thousand injuries" he has sustained from Fortunato. But the final exchange between Montresor and his victim is significant:
"The Amontillado!" I said.
"He! he! he!—he! he! he!—yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato and the rest? Let us be gone."
"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."
"For the love of God, Montresor!"
"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"
Montresor does not really want to kill Fortunato. In saying "let us be gone" it appears he means it, and agrees that it would be better to go back to the palazzo with his "friend" and rejoin the others. His strange echo of Fortunato's plea "for the love of God!" has always seemed sadly ironic to me. As in "The Black Cat," the "imp of the perverse" has compelled a man to do something he knows is monstrously wrong.
What is the mood difference between "The Black Cat" and "The Cask of Amontillado"?
"The Black Cat" seems to have a more contemporary flavor, while "The Cask of Amontillado" seems ancient and gothic. We have some sympathy for the narrator of "The Cask of Amontillado" and actually want to see his plan of revenge succeed. On the other hand, we lose all sympathy for the narrator of "The Black Cat" after he treats his poor cat in such a sadistic manner. The mood in "The Black Cat" is haunted by the insane cruelty of the protagonist. We are quite satisfied to see him caught and punished at the end of the story, and we feel it is only poetic justice that he should be exposed by the cat. "The Cask of Amontillado" is a perfect-crime story in which the protagonist gets away with murder. "The Black Cat" is a conventional perfect-crime story in which the protagonist is caught and punished. "The Black Cat" is the kind of story in which the "effect" is produced by the surprise ending, while "The Cask of Amontillado" is the kind of story in which the effect is produced by the overall impression from beginning to end. The fact that Fortunato ends up chained to the rock wall comes as no surprise. Both stories are similar in that they display terrible cruelty by the protagonists. They make us wonder about Poe himself--how he could apparently take pleasure in writing about such vicious behavior by characters of his creation.