Black Cat Essay, Research Paper
In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, “The Black Cat”, there are many examples of ironies to which we as readers may not be fully aware of. I have listed a few of these ironies that I thought were relevant in the story’s plot and one, which I thought was the most significant. Ironies such as the narrator’s upbringing as having the “docility and humanity of disposition” (102.13), and “having fondness for animals and the feeling of happiness when feeding and caressing them”(103.1-3), are only a few examples of situational ironies in this story. They are ironies because his action towards his house pets do not endorse the humanity the animals deserve to be given and the so-called fondness he has for animals has been recently altered to be that of cruelly and hideously maltreating them. There are many more ironies in the story, but the most crucial irony was that in the conclusion. The concluding irony, one that I found to be the most significant, is when the narrator finds the black cat “walled-in” with his wife’s corpse. After his accidental but vicious attack on his wife with an ax, he wanted to conceal the corpse where no one would be able to witness his doings. To avoid public speculation he thought about how the “monks in the Middle Ages were recorded to have walled up their victims” (106.56) and so he then used the idea of the monks to cover up his wife’s dead body. In finishing his task of plastering the wall after his wife, he awaits the presence of the black cat to slaughter it, but it was nowhere to be found or seen. To his misfortune, he conceals the cat along with his wife’s corpse inside the wall and obliviously turns himself in to the authorities. This one, I think is most important because were it not for the concluding irony there would be no story. Since there are many more ironies in the story, it is this one that finalizes the story and one that initiated as well. The narrator is telling how this ordeal came about while awaiting his execution and to verbally recapture his then-life with his audiences to claim his sanity. While he reminisces, we as the reader can have an understanding of what he went through and think for a moment about what the black cat represents and if there really exists the black cat. Ironies besides the concluding one also helps thicken the plot in the story. We are given ironies such that I mentioned earlier in the essay and many more that help us understand and question the narrator’s sanity. In the event of the narrator eye gouging one of Pluto’s eyes, he said that he felt a “sentiment half of horror, half remorse, for the crime” (103.42-45). If his feelings were so remorseful, why didn’t he stop torturing the poor animal? I think this one captures the essence of a dramatic irony, feelings of ambiguity he is experiencing and yet the narrator acts on confused notions when killing his cat. Another irony that dramatizes his obscure feelings towards his cat, Pluto, was when he noosed up his cat from the limb of a tree to severely cut oxygen from its system or rather to kill it, execution style. He “hung it with tears streaming from his eyes and with the bitterest remorse at his heart.” “Hung it because he knew that it had loved him and because he felt it had given him no reason of offense- hung it because in doing so he was committing a sin” (104.19-21). Why then would the narrator act on impulses such as this one if his feelings were of the total opposite? Again a dramatic irony that leaves us, the readers to feel upset and to feel anger towards the narrator for having such deranged thoughts that only he can understand. Furthermore, through my interpretation of these ironies, it helps me to keep aware of the narrator’s behavior throughout the story. His behavior is what defines irony such that, the narrator seems to be fully conscious of what he is feeling but is completely out of touch with reality and acts on different morals from that of his emotions. These ironies are just a few that I’ve mentioned that correlates to its concluding irony. There also seems to be the debate of the black cat, how the story’s readers scrutinize it whether it does exist or not. It can be a symbol or can stand for something, to what it can stand for varies from reader to reader. Some may think that the black cat stands for something evil and that it only exists in the mind of the narrator. It can be a cause for an arguable debate and if so, one to which I’m not going to impose. I think there is a symbolic meaning to the black cat and I would think those who have read it would agree that it represents the narrator himself and what his character reveals about him. Why then would his inner character take a figure of a black cat? There are numerous reasons as to why it appeared in a shape of a cat. For one, a black cat back then was “regarded as witches at the time” (103.16). Witches were the source of all evil at the time and witches also had the power to put a spell on a person they wish to do harm. Second, the narrator, was once a lover of his cat named Pluto and was considerably loved by Pluto as well, when some time later there came this emotional setback that gave him a turn for the worse and he later “ill-used” and tortured and murdered his pets. In taking a figure of a cat he is given the horrible sense that the black cat is his evil side waiting to haunt him.
It was after killing the poor animal that he began his nightmares and weird assumptions about anything at all. When after killing his pet Pluto, there in his room a blaze of fire ignited and inside his room lay his dead cat. He automatically assumed that it was one of his neighbors who had untied his cat from the tree and threw it in his chamber. Next, when the black cat first appeared he enjoyed its companionship but no later did he feel total disregard for the cat and avoided it. He believed that the creature was acting in murderous manners and he undoubtedly felt that it was trying to kill him. “Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk, it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress.” (105.43-45). Here we see that, what the narrator is feeling towards the cat, and what he had done to his late cat, Pluto, was in some sense haunting him through a reversal of character. He is experiencing the same trepidation Pluto had when he inflicted physical pain upon it. The black cat may actually resemble his guilt and anguish and is therefore only present in his presence. The black cat is indeed a figment of the narrator’s imagination and it represents the subtleness of his dark side. It is a figure that made him realize his “sins” by having to actually feel what he had done with his animals. Only he does not know that it is his guilt eating up inside him and an urge to do away with that guilt was to create himself that cat to release the guilt inside him. In the end of the story he says something remarkably ironic to the authorities. One of the verbal ironies I found to be truly shocking was that of when the authorities went uninvited in his house to investigate his missing wife and unconsciously turned himself in to the police investigators – “I may say an excellently well-constructed house. These walls – are you going gentlemen? – these walls are solidly put together” (107.45-46) Were it not for that statement he made, he would have still possessed the freedom he once had. He was pointing to the wall where he had vertically buried his wife’s body and mentioned that “the cat had seduced him into murder” (108.15) when it was really the feeling of guilt, frustration and fear that ended his life. Also, if the cat did exist, that cat would have suffered agonizingly without oxygen inside the wall and have died of starvation. The black cat then, can be regarded as his form of guilt and madness and that there never really was a black cat initially but that it only lived in the mind of the narrator. With this in mind, we not only have a better understanding of what the black cat stands for, but also what it is about the narrator’s description of the black cat that makes it profoundingly real. Since the ending of the story consisted of the most important irony I interpreted the story’s conclusion as to “what comes around goes around”, and “there is a price for every deed.” These may all sound like such clich s but it may or may not be a form of moral explanation, if it indeed it had one. I say that because the story consists of a moral justification. In the story, the narrator murdered his wife and concealed tangible evidence or any evidence at all that will allow him to seal his horrid deed. Even with the perfect concealment there is always a way of finding out the horrible truth. In addition, since I have justified the black cat as a symbol of the narrator’s cruel persona we can safely say that what he did with those poor pets was avenged by a figment of his imagination of a cat.
Другие работы по теме:
The Bells Essay Research Paper The Bellsby
The Bells Essay, Research Paper The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe ?The Bells? is one of Poe’s famous poems, in which Poe tries to make the bells sound real. He tries to make the sounds by using words instead of sound, which is really annoying when
Black Magic Essay Research Paper More and
Black Magic Essay, Research Paper More and more people are joining groups that practice black magic. The leader of The British Occult Society is convinced it is because many people are missing excitement in their daily lives. He is certain that these people are imagining that they in that way can experience things they have read about or are dreaming about.
Black Bear Essay Research Paper Matt MeaneyPeriod
Black Bear Essay, Research Paper Matt Meaney Period 6 Extra Credit 4/2/00 The presentation given on the black bears on April Second was generally to me at least too appeared almost fake. I didn’t understand how he says they wouldn’t attack you, and it’s just a bluff charge, when just this year a woman in Boonton was attacked as well as her dog by a black bear.
BLACK Essay Research Paper BLACK IS THE
BLACK Essay, Research Paper BLACK IS THE HOLE DEEP IN OUR HEARTS THE LONELINESS WE FEEL, WHEN OUR LOVED ONES DEPART BLACK IS THE COLOR OF THE HEAVENLY SKY THE COLOR YOU WEAR
Eternal Love Triangles Essay Research Paper Mark
Eternal Love Triangles Essay, Research Paper Mark Anthony, Cleopatra, and Caesar. King Arthur, Guinevere, and Launcellot. Antonio Banderas, Melanie Griffith, and Don Johnson. Heathcliff, Catherine, Edgar. These four groups of people all represent the eternal love triangle. The eternal love triangle has existed for thousands of years.
King Lear Edmund Essay Research Paper Shakespeare
King Lear Edmund Essay, Research Paper Shakespeare s King Lear is a story of treachery and deceit. The villainy of the play knows no bounds. Family lines are ignored in an overwhelming quest for power. This villainy is epitomized in the character of Edmund, bastard son of the Earl of Gloucester.
Edgar Degas Essay Research Paper Degas pronounced
Edgar Degas Essay, Research Paper Degas, pronounced duh GAH, Edgar (1834-1917), was a French impressionist painter. Like the other impressionists, he wanted to portray situations from modern life. However, he did not share his fellow impressionists’ concentration on light and color. Degas emphasized composition, drawing, and form more than did the other members of the movement.
Edgar Degas Essay Research Paper Degas Edgar
Edgar Degas Essay, Research Paper Degas Edgar was a French painter. His compositions, skillful drawings, and perceptive analysis of movement made him one of the greatest artists of modern art in the late 19th century.
Edgar Degas Essay Research Paper Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas Essay, Research Paper Edgar Degas was a French artist, some people would refer to him as the expert of drawing the human figure in motion. He was known as an Impressionists, and was different from all the other artist of his type. Edgar Degas was a person who, at certain times, brashly defied propriety and common social practice.
The Effects Of Setting On Character In
The Masque Of Red Deat Essay, Research Paper Brandon Cupp January 1, 1997 English 113 The Effects of Setting on Character “The Masque of Red Death” and “The Shawl” are quite similar yet very unalike. The way the authors described the setting set the traits of the characters’ personalities. In “The Masque of Red Death,” by Edgar Allan Poe, Prince Prospero was the main character.
King LearTheme Essay Research Paper Throughout the
King Lear-Theme Essay, Research Paper Throughout the play King Lear, the theme that was well expressed was that of fidelity. It was evident in different relationships such as Kent with King Lear, Cordelia with King Lear, and Edgar with Gloucester.
The Black Essay Research Paper The Courageous
The Black Essay, Research Paper The Courageous Black Stallion! Here is a tale of an incredibly courageous black stallion. Down on Hopeful farm there is a guy named Alec Ramsay. One night he couldn’t sleep because he knew something was wrong. He got up and went to the barn where on a desk there was a paper about the insurance on the barn, it said it was canceled! There was a horse, Miz Liz, that Snappy, the foaling guy, was supposed to foal.
The TellTale Heart Essay Research Paper Paper
The Tell-Tale Heart Essay, Research Paper Paper on: The Tell-Tale Heart True! nervous very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The Tell-Tale Heart, a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe, is about an insane butler who plans to kill the man that he is working for. In the film adaptation the narrator shows us, the viewers, how careful and cunning he is about the way he kills the man he works for.
The Awakening Essay Research Paper
“The boundaries which divide Life and Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends, and where the other begins?” Edgar Allan Poe, The Premature Burial (Bartlett, 642). To venture into the world of Edgar Allan Poe is to embark on a journey to a land filled with perversities of the mind, soul, and body.
Black Essay Research Paper Black Soldiers in
Black Essay, Research Paper Black Soldiers in the Union Army During the Seventeenth, Eighteenth and part of the Nineteenth Century the White People of North America used the Black people of Africa as slaves to benefit their interests. White people created a climate of superiority of their race over the Black African race that in some places, still lingers on today.
Black Holes Essay Research Paper Our universe
Black Holes Essay, Research Paper Our universe is a vast abyss, always expanding without any end. Many objects in space are exciting and interesting. One great mystery is the black hole. Ever
The Raven And The TellTale Heart Essay
, Research Paper Comparisons of ?The Raven? and ?The Tell-Tale Heart? Edgar Allen Poe’s story “A Tell Tale Heart,” has the protagonist obsessed with an old man’s eye. This obsession causes a conflict between the protagonist and his sanity. In ?The Raven the man imagines that a raven is a godsend, intended to relieve him of his anguish.
Edgar Allen Poe Biography Essay Research Paper
This Paper is about Edgar Allen Poe. Through out his life bad luck and misfortune seemed to follow him until his death. It seems as if from women and through out his time as an author there was no escaping it. This paper will discuss some of the misfortunes and bad luck that was in Poe’s life.
Phyllis Wheatley Essay Research Paper Through out
Phyllis Wheatley Essay, Research Paper Through out the course of American literature many authors have used poetry as their means of expressing feelings and emotions. Edgar Allan Poe and Phillis Wheatley wrote during two different centuries, Wheatley during the eighteenth century and Poe during the nineteenth century.
Calvin Klein And Shakespeare The Conspiracy Essay
, Research Paper Calvin Kline, and Shakespeare; The Conspiracy. Nakedness and dress in Shakespeare’s King Lear, represented the status of a character. Many scenes use clothing to show one characters dominance over another.
Black Death Essay Research Paper Black Death
Black Death Essay, Research Paper Black Death This month there was a big disaster. It wasn t a war or an earthquakes. It was the 14th century plague that swept Europe called the Black Death. It first came from Central Asia then kept moving to Europe. It can kill many people in just months. The source of what gives off this disease is unknown.
King Lear By William Shakespeare 1564
– 1616) Essay, Research Paper Since King Lear’s setting is pre-Christian Britain, some readers chafe under the sort of nihilistic fatalism that colors the characters’ thinking (”As flies to wanton boys we are to the
Edgar Allan Poe Essay Research Paper Edgar
Edgar Allan Poe Essay, Research Paper Edgar Allan Poe Throughout literature, an author?s works almost always reflect their mood and character. Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer whose short stories and poems reflected his pessimistic moods. One of Poe?s poems, “The Raven,” is about a raven that flies into the home of a sad and lonely man.
Edgar Allan Poe Essay Research Paper Poe
Edgar Allan Poe Essay, Research Paper Poe’s Never Ending Loneliness “From childhood’s hour I have not been/as others were; I have not seen/ as others say I could not bring/ my passions from a common spring. From the same source I have not taken/ my sorrow; I could not awaken/ my heart to joy at the same tone;/ and all I loved, I loved alone.”
The Black Cat By Poe Essay Research
Paper “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe wrote that the single effect was the most important aspect of a short story, which everything must contribute to this effect. Poe s gothic tale The Black Cat was written trying to achieve an effect of shocking insanity. In this first person narrative the narrator tells of his decline from sanity to madness, all because of an obsession with two (or possibly one) black cats.
Symbolism In Edgar Allan Poe S The
Black Cat Essay, Research Paper Symbolism in Edgar Allan Poe s The Black Cat In Edgar Allan Poe s The Black Cat, symbolism is used to show the narrator s capacity for violence, madness, and guilt. The Black Cat, written by Edgar Allan Poe serves as a reminder for all of us. The Capacity for violence and horror lies within each of
Edwin Arlington Robinson And Edgar Lee Masters
Essay, Research Paper The Realist Poets incorporated the theme of death into their works. Edwin Arlington Robinson and Edgar Lee Masters both wrote about thetheme of death and is clearly shown in their works. Edwin Arlington Robinson wrote ?Richard Cory?. ?And Richard Cory,one calm summer night, Went home and put a bullet through his head.? Thisis clearly showing a theme of death because he went home and killed himself.
Edgar Allen Poe Essay Research Paper Edgar
Edgar Allen Poe Essay, Research Paper Edgar Allen Poe Edgar Allen Poe, the greatest American teller of mystery and suspense tales in the 19th century was a tormented artist. He struggled to become the accomplished author he is
Black Boy Paper Essay Research Paper Black
Black Boy Paper Essay, Research Paper Black Boy Paper When put into a foreign environment animal s adept, so do humans when they need to learn they ways of life. Richard Wright, due to his surroundings, had to adapt and become independent early in his life. In the book, Black Boy, Richard shows how he progressively became independent in his writings.
Black Holes 4 Essay Research Paper Black
Black Holes 4 Essay, Research Paper Black Holes area region of space-time, which nothing can escape, even light. It is impossible to see a black hole directly because no light can escape from them; they are black. But there are good reasons to think they exist.
The Masque Of The Red Death By 2
The Masque Of The Red Death By Edgar Allen Poe Essay, Research Paper Edgar Allen Poe’s ?The Masque of the Red Death? is an elaborate allegory that combines objects in the story with visual descriptions to give focus to the reader’s imagination. In the story, a prince named Prospero tries to dodge the Red Death through isolation and seclusion.
The Black Cat Essay Research Paper
“The Black Cat” Essay The Romantic period has numerous characteristics that help to distinguish it from other literary periods. A large majority of the pieces found in this period have at least one of the distinctive elements. Edgar Allan Poe uses a few of these elements to put a time frame on his short story, “The Black Cat”.
Baseball Essay Research Paper Robinson Jackiefirst black
Baseball Essay, Research Paper Robinson, Jackie first black baseball player in the U.S. major leagues during the 20th century, an infielder and outfielder for the Brooklyn Dodgers of the National League from 1947 through 1956.
Symbols Essay Research Paper SymbolsSymbols can play
Symbols Essay, Research Paper Symbols Symbols can play very important roles in the stories that contain them. ?The Masque of the Red Death? by Edgar Allan Poe has three major examples of symbols that help to give the story its true meaning. The three main occurrences of symbolism are evident as a color, number, or a name.