The Black Cat

The pitch- down(p) Cat by Edgar Allan Poe is unity of Poes greatest literary works that embodies his pinch themes of death, force-out, and darkness. Poes main reference book begins his narration of his horrible wrongdoings regarding them as a series of mere household events (Poe 705). However, this is where Poes mockery and irony begins and the write up progresses to show the derange mindset of this character as he tries to justify his actions. As the main character proceeds to rationalize his crime, Poe is able to occupy a smell out of irony done his use of foreshadowing, similes and symbolism.Irony begins within the degree regulateers introduction to his confession by telling the lecturer that he entrust tell his story moreover without mark (Poe 705). Within this same ironic footstep, the bank clerk celebrates to humanize his actions and plea for justifi rangeion just predicts that what he has already done has undone him. Poe describes how these events have terrifiedhave torturedhave destroyed him (Poe 705). Poe adds an ironic tone to the story by telling it finished the fabri sickors perspective.The bank clerk is a demented individual and the average referee cannot relate to the evil that has erupted inside him. As he begins to rationalize, there is a broad difference between the bank clerk and the commentator leading to the irony that the man feels that this was totally a normal series of misfortune. literary critic, Richard Badenhausen, explains Poes decision for telling the story from the narrators point-of-view, Despite pledging to tell his statement without comment, the narrator is constantly qualifying, correcting, and explaining, in the hope that the audience will give away events from his perspective.Although he ironically announces in the beginning sentence that he neither expects nor solicits effect the narrator is obsessively concerned with some(prenominal) activities he hopes for understanding from his listen ers and energetically pursues cheering by employing the various manipulative tools of the bank clerk (Badenhausen 487). Finally, Poe also thickens the suspense of the story with the betimes foreshadowing that the main character feels that he may harm his married woman writing, At length, I even offered her personal force play (Poe 706 ). The greatest metaphor passim this tale is the ignominious regorge.While the narrators married woman has been kn feature to refer to the brunet feline as a catch in disguise, the metaphor for Poe is that the cat is not except a superstitious monster but it is also a metaphor for being the narrators throw personal demon (Poe 706). The recur events with the down in the mouth cats in the story gift that they are metaphors for the narrators own problems that haunt him. As the series of events continue throughout the story, the cat be finds a ocular element in the scene for the narrators recurring violence and in the long run brings him to the point of his insanity.Moreover, it has been argued that the cat is a metaphor for the narrators married woman. Critics claim that the following(a) passage raises suspicion that the killing of the eldest cat was actually the murder of his own wife. Poe writes Norton Anthology American Literature. 7th. 1. New York, NY W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. , 2008. 705-711. Print. Critics who support this flightiness feel that the reversal is substitution in wife for cat and cat for wife and that the narrator had clearly projected his feelings for his wife onto the cat (Amper 475).Literary critic, Susan Amper, commented on this metaphor- conjecture, It is not merely that the wife was always the intend victim she was the original, in fact the wholly victim. Moreover, this inference provides a much more compelling reason for the narrators substitution of cat for wife or rather equalise reasons, for his pretense that he has however killed his cat serves both to ease his own sense of guil t, and to shield him from prosecution for murder (Amper 475). This theory also supports the irony that the wifes body was decomposed after merely three-days and leaves the reader with one of Poes signature suspenseful, distressing endings.The final writing element that Poe uses throughout this short story is symbolism. Readers are introduced to one of the storys main characters, infernal region, the saturnine cat, who supposedly provokes the narrator into committing his heinous acts of violence but is merely symbolic for the narrators imbedded hatred and evil. Not only is this feline symbolic for evil because of superstitions regarding black cats, the cats name has a deeper symbolic meaning. According to Roman Mythology, Pluto is name of the god of the dead and ruler of the underworld.This symbolic name not only represents the narrators cruel intentions but also provides a sense of foreshadowing. afterward the basic black cat is slain, a second black cat appears and is unwelco med by the narrator. According to Professor Ann Bliss from the University of California, looks remarkably like the original except in one respect it is marked with a patch of white that, for the narrator, increasingly comes to correspond a gallowsreminding the narrator of his violence toward the first cat and foreshadowing acts of violence to come (Bliss 97).The white color of the patch with the offsetting black fur is also symbolic to the hot and evil confliction within the narrator. Finally, the second black cat leads to the narrator allegedly murdering his wife accidently. In conclusion, Poes literary masterpiece, The blackness Cat is a suspenseful story filled with irony and hidden messages and themes. Although this is a short-story, Poe skillfully provides the reader with enough read to make conclusions about the motive, sequence of events, and the narrators denial of apparent genial disorder and alcoholism that plagues him.