.gif)
The Black Cat (short story)
Encyclopedia
"The Black Cat" is a short story
by Edgar Allan Poe
. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post
. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart
". In both, a murderer carefully conceals his crime and believes himself unassailable, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself, impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt.
The story is presented as a first-person narrative
using an unreliable narrator
. He is a condemned man at the outset of the story. The narrator tells us that from an early age he has loved animals. He and his wife have many pets, including a large black cat named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic
. One night, after coming home intoxicated, he believes the cat is avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in a fit of rage, he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife
from his pocket, and deliberately gouges out the cat's eye.
From that moment onward, the cat flees in terror at his master's approach. At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty. "But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS." He takes the cat out in the garden one morning and hangs it from a tree, where it dies. That very night, his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the narrator, his wife and their servant to flee.
The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the figure of a gigantic cat, hanging by its neck from a rope.
At first, this image terrifies the narrator, but gradually he determines a logical explanation for it, that someone outside had thrown the dead cat into the bedroom to wake him up during the fire, and begins to miss Pluto. Some time later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern. It is the same size and color as the original and is even missing an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the animal's chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to loathe, even fear the creature. After a time, the white patch of fur begins to take shape and, to the narrator, forms the shape of the gallows
.
Then, one day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new home, the cat gets under its master's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs. In a fury, the man grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat but is stopped by his wife. Enraged, he kills her with the axe instead. To conceal her body he removes bricks from a protrusion in the wall, places her body there, and repairs the hole. When the police came to investigate, they find nothing and the narrator goes free. The cat, which he intended to kill as well, has gone missing.
On the last day of the investigation, the narrator accompanies the police into the cellar. They still find nothing. Then, completely confident in his own safety, the narrator comments on the sturdiness of the building and raps upon the wall he had built around his wife's body. A wailing sound fills the room. The alarmed police tear down the wall and find the wife's corpse, and on her head, to the horror of the narrator, is the screeching black cat. As he words it: "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!"
. At the time, the publication was using the temporary title United States Saturday Post. Readers immediately responded favorably to the story, spawning parodies including Thomas Dunn English's
"The Ghost of the Grey Tadpole". It was also collected in Tales (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe.
", the narrator of "The Black Cat" has questionable sanity. Near the beginning of the tale, the narrator says he would be "mad indeed" if he should expect a reader to believe the story, implying that he has already been accused of madness.
The extent to which the narrator claims to have loved his animals suggests mental instability in the form of having “too much of a good thing”. His partiality for animals substitutes “the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man”. Since the narrator’s wife shares his love of animals, he likely thinks of her as another pet, seeing as he distrusts and dislikes humans. Additionally, his failure to understand his excessive love of animals foreshadows his inability to explain his motives
for his actions.
One of Poe's darkest tales, "The Black Cat" includes his strongest denouncement of alcohol. The narrator's perverse actions are brought on by his alcoholism
, a "disease" and "fiend" which also destroys his personality. The use of the black cat
evokes various superstition
s, including the idea voiced by the narrator's wife that they are all witches in disguise. The titular cat is named Pluto after the Roman god
of the Underworld
.
Although Pluto is a neutral character at the beginning of the story, he becomes antagonistic
in the narrator’s eyes once the narrator becomes an alcoholic. The alcohol pushes the narrator into fits of intemperance and violence, to the point at which everything angers him – Pluto in particular, who is always by his side, becomes the malevolent witch who haunts him even while avoiding his presence. When the narrator cuts Pluto’s eye from its socket, this can be seen as symbolic of self-inflicted partial blindness to his own vision of moral goodness.
The fire that destroys the narrator’s house symbolizes the narrator’s "almost complete moral disintegration". The only remainder is the impression of Pluto upon the wall, which represents his unforgiveable and incorrigible sin.
From a rhetorician's standpoint, an effective scheme of omission that Poe employs is diazeugma
, or using many verbs for one subject; it omits pronouns. Diazeugma emphasizes actions and makes the narrative swift and brief.
starring Bela Lugosi
and Boris Karloff
in 1934 and another
with Lugosi and Basil Rathbone
in 1941, although neither version bears much resemblance to the original story. Many other adaptations exist but the most faithful to the original is the middle segment of Roger Corman
's trilogy film Tales of Terror
in 1962. Although the overall film was cast with Vincent Price
as the lead, in this segment, he was in a supporting role with Peter Lorre
as the main character. The 1934 film Maniac
also loosely adapts the story. This version follows a former vaudeville
actor who kills a doctor and takes the doctor's place to hide his crime. "The Black Cat" was also adapted into a film of the same name by Italian horror director Lucio Fulci
in 1981. Film director Dario Argento
presented his own loose adaptation of the story in the 1990 anthology film
Two Evil Eyes
.
" is the eleventh episode of the second season of Masters of Horror
. The plot essentially retells the short story in a semi-autobiographical manner, with Poe himself undergoing a series of events involving a black cat which he used to inspire the story of the same name.
, with various celebrities lending their voices to the tales. The Black Cat was read by avant-garde
performer Diamanda Galás
.
In 1970, Czech writer Ludvík Vaculík
made many references to "A Descent into the Maelström
" as well as "The Black Cat" in his novel The Guinea Pigs.
painted "The Black Cat" in direct reference to Poe's short story.
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
. It was first published in the August 19, 1843, edition of The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
. It is a study of the psychology of guilt, often paired in analysis with Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart
The Tell-Tale Heart
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
". In both, a murderer carefully conceals his crime and believes himself unassailable, but eventually breaks down and reveals himself, impelled by a nagging reminder of his guilt.
Plot
First-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
using an unreliable narrator
Unreliable narrator
An unreliable narrator is a narrator, whether in literature, film, or theatre, whose credibility has been seriously compromised. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in The Rhetoric of Fiction. This narrative mode is one that can be developed by an author for a number of reasons, usually...
. He is a condemned man at the outset of the story. The narrator tells us that from an early age he has loved animals. He and his wife have many pets, including a large black cat named Pluto. This cat is especially fond of the narrator and vice versa. Their mutual friendship lasts for several years, until the narrator becomes an alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
. One night, after coming home intoxicated, he believes the cat is avoiding him. When he tries to seize it, the panicked cat bites the narrator, and in a fit of rage, he seizes the animal, pulls a pen-knife
Penknife
A penknife, or pen knife, is a small folding pocket knife, originally used for cutting or sharpening a quill to make a pen nib. Originally, penknives did not necessarily have folding blades, but resembled a scalpel or wood knife by having a short, fixed blade at the end of a long handle...
from his pocket, and deliberately gouges out the cat's eye.
From that moment onward, the cat flees in terror at his master's approach. At first, the narrator is remorseful and regrets his cruelty. "But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS." He takes the cat out in the garden one morning and hangs it from a tree, where it dies. That very night, his house mysteriously catches fire, forcing the narrator, his wife and their servant to flee.
The next day, the narrator returns to the ruins of his home to find, imprinted on the single wall that survived the fire, the figure of a gigantic cat, hanging by its neck from a rope.
At first, this image terrifies the narrator, but gradually he determines a logical explanation for it, that someone outside had thrown the dead cat into the bedroom to wake him up during the fire, and begins to miss Pluto. Some time later, he finds a similar cat in a tavern. It is the same size and color as the original and is even missing an eye. The only difference is a large white patch on the animal's chest. The narrator takes it home, but soon begins to loathe, even fear the creature. After a time, the white patch of fur begins to take shape and, to the narrator, forms the shape of the gallows
Gallows
A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered...
.
Then, one day when the narrator and his wife are visiting the cellar in their new home, the cat gets under its master's feet and nearly trips him down the stairs. In a fury, the man grabs an axe and tries to kill the cat but is stopped by his wife. Enraged, he kills her with the axe instead. To conceal her body he removes bricks from a protrusion in the wall, places her body there, and repairs the hole. When the police came to investigate, they find nothing and the narrator goes free. The cat, which he intended to kill as well, has gone missing.
On the last day of the investigation, the narrator accompanies the police into the cellar. They still find nothing. Then, completely confident in his own safety, the narrator comments on the sturdiness of the building and raps upon the wall he had built around his wife's body. A wailing sound fills the room. The alarmed police tear down the wall and find the wife's corpse, and on her head, to the horror of the narrator, is the screeching black cat. As he words it: "I had walled the monster up within the tomb!"
Publication history
"The Black Cat" was first published in the August 19, 1843 issue of The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
. At the time, the publication was using the temporary title United States Saturday Post. Readers immediately responded favorably to the story, spawning parodies including Thomas Dunn English's
Thomas Dunn English
Thomas Dunn English was an American Democratic Party politician from New Jersey who represented the state's 6th congressional district in the House of Representatives from 1891 to 1895. He was also a published author and songwriter, who had a bitter ongoing feud with Edgar Allan...
"The Ghost of the Grey Tadpole". It was also collected in Tales (1845) by Edgar Allan Poe.
Analysis
Like the narrator in Poe's "The Tell-Tale HeartThe Tell-Tale Heart
"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
", the narrator of "The Black Cat" has questionable sanity. Near the beginning of the tale, the narrator says he would be "mad indeed" if he should expect a reader to believe the story, implying that he has already been accused of madness.
The extent to which the narrator claims to have loved his animals suggests mental instability in the form of having “too much of a good thing”. His partiality for animals substitutes “the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man”. Since the narrator’s wife shares his love of animals, he likely thinks of her as another pet, seeing as he distrusts and dislikes humans. Additionally, his failure to understand his excessive love of animals foreshadows his inability to explain his motives
Motivation
Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation...
for his actions.
One of Poe's darkest tales, "The Black Cat" includes his strongest denouncement of alcohol. The narrator's perverse actions are brought on by his alcoholism
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
, a "disease" and "fiend" which also destroys his personality. The use of the black cat
Black cat
A black cat is a feline with black fur. It is not a particular breed of cat and may be mixed or of a specific breed. The Bombay, known for its sleek black fur, is an example of a black cat. The all-black pigmentation is equally prevalent in both male and female cats...
evokes various superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
s, including the idea voiced by the narrator's wife that they are all witches in disguise. The titular cat is named Pluto after the Roman god
Pluto (mythology)
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Pluto was a name for the ruler of the underworld; the god was also known as Hades, a name for the underworld itself...
of the Underworld
Underworld
The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...
.
- The DoppelgängerDoppelgängerIn fiction and folklore, a doppelgänger is a paranormal double of a living person, typically representing evil or misfortune...
– see also "William WilsonWilliam Wilson (short story)"William Wilson" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1839, with a setting inspired by Poe's formative years outside of London. The tale follows the theme of the doppelgänger and is written in a style based on rationality...
" - Guilt – see also "The Tell-Tale HeartThe Tell-Tale Heart"The Tell-Tale Heart" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe first published in 1843. It follows an unnamed narrator who insists on his sanity after murdering an old man with a "vulture eye". The murder is carefully calculated, and the murderer hides the body by dismembering it and hiding it under the...
"
Although Pluto is a neutral character at the beginning of the story, he becomes antagonistic
Antagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
in the narrator’s eyes once the narrator becomes an alcoholic. The alcohol pushes the narrator into fits of intemperance and violence, to the point at which everything angers him – Pluto in particular, who is always by his side, becomes the malevolent witch who haunts him even while avoiding his presence. When the narrator cuts Pluto’s eye from its socket, this can be seen as symbolic of self-inflicted partial blindness to his own vision of moral goodness.
The fire that destroys the narrator’s house symbolizes the narrator’s "almost complete moral disintegration". The only remainder is the impression of Pluto upon the wall, which represents his unforgiveable and incorrigible sin.
From a rhetorician's standpoint, an effective scheme of omission that Poe employs is diazeugma
Zeugma
Zeugma is a figure of speech in which two or more parts of a sentence are joined with a single common verb or noun. A zeugma employs both ellipsis, the omission of words which are easily understood, and parallelism, the balance of several words or phrases...
, or using many verbs for one subject; it omits pronouns. Diazeugma emphasizes actions and makes the narrative swift and brief.
In film
"The Black Cat" was adapted into a filmThe Black Cat (1934 film)
The Black Cat is a 1934 horror film that became Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year. It was the first of eight movies to pair actors Béla Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Edgar G. Ulmer directed the film; Peter Ruric wrote the screenplay...
starring Bela Lugosi
Béla Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó , commonly known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his...
and Boris Karloff
Boris Karloff
William Henry Pratt , better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein , Bride of Frankenstein , and Son of Frankenstein...
in 1934 and another
The Black Cat (1941 film)
The Black Cat is a 1941 film based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Actor Bela Lugosi also appeared in the 1934 adaptation of the story. The comedy/horror film was directed by Albert S. Rogell, and starred Basil Rathbone.-Main cast:...
with Lugosi and Basil Rathbone
Basil Rathbone
Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...
in 1941, although neither version bears much resemblance to the original story. Many other adaptations exist but the most faithful to the original is the middle segment of Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
's trilogy film Tales of Terror
Tales of Terror
Tales of Terror is an American International Pictures horror film starring Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, and Basil Rathbone; it is the fourth in a series of adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories directed by Roger Corman and released by AIP.-Plot:...
in 1962. Although the overall film was cast with Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
as the lead, in this segment, he was in a supporting role with Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
as the main character. The 1934 film Maniac
Maniac (1934 film)
Maniac, also known as Sex Maniac, is a 1934 black-and-white exploitation/horror film, directed by Dwain Esper and written by Hildegarde Stadie, Esper's wife, as a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story "The Black Cat", with references to his "Murders in the Rue Morgue"...
also loosely adapts the story. This version follows a former vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
actor who kills a doctor and takes the doctor's place to hide his crime. "The Black Cat" was also adapted into a film of the same name by Italian horror director Lucio Fulci
Lucio Fulci
Lucio Fulci was an Italian film director, screenwriter, and actor. He is perhaps best known for his directorial work on gore films, including Zombie and The Beyond , although he made films in genres as diverse as giallo, western, and comedy...
in 1981. Film director Dario Argento
Dario Argento
Dario Argento is an Italian film director, producer and screenwriter. He is best known for his work in the horror film genre, particularly in the subgenre known as giallo, and for his influence on modern horror and slasher movies....
presented his own loose adaptation of the story in the 1990 anthology film
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...
Two Evil Eyes
Two Evil Eyes
Two Evil Eyes is a 1990 double feature horror film written and directed by the Italian Dario Argento and the American George A. Romero. The two had previously worked together on the immensely popular Dawn of the Dead in 1978.-Overview:...
.
In television
"The Black CatThe Black Cat (Masters of Horror episode)
The Black Cat is the eleventh episode of the second season of Masters of Horror, directed by Stuart Gordon from a screenplay by Gordon and Dennis Paoli. It was broadcast on Showtime on January 19, 2007...
" is the eleventh episode of the second season of Masters of Horror
Masters of Horror
Masters of Horror is an informal social group of international film writers and directors specializing in horror movies and an American television series created by director Mick Garris for the Showtime cable network.- Origin :...
. The plot essentially retells the short story in a semi-autobiographical manner, with Poe himself undergoing a series of events involving a black cat which he used to inspire the story of the same name.
Recordings
In 1997, a compilation of Poe's work was released on a double CD entitled Closed on Account of RabiesClosed On Account of Rabies
Closed On Account of Rabies is a double-CD with poems and tales of Edgar Allan Poe performed by various artists, and produced by Hal Willner...
, with various celebrities lending their voices to the tales. The Black Cat was read by avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
performer Diamanda Galás
Diamanda Galás
Diamanda Galás is an American avant-garde composer, vocalist, pianist, organist, performance artist and painter.Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range. She often screams, hisses and growls...
.
Literary works
"The Black Cat" was adapted into a 7 page comic strip in Yellowjack Comics #1 (1944).In 1970, Czech writer Ludvík Vaculík
Ludvík Vaculík
Ludvík Vaculík is a Czech writer and journalist. A prominent samizdat writer, he is most famous as the author of the "Two Thousand Words" manifesto of June 1968.-Pre-1968:...
made many references to "A Descent into the Maelström
A Descent into the Maelstrom
"A Descent into the Maelström" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. In the tale, a man recounts how he survived a shipwreck and a whirlpool. It has been grouped with Poe's tales of ratiocination and also labeled an early form of science fiction.-Plot:...
" as well as "The Black Cat" in his novel The Guinea Pigs.
Art
In 1910–11 Futurist artist Gino SeveriniGino Severini
Gino Severini , was an Italian painter and a leading member of the Futurist movement. For much of his life he divided his time between Paris and Rome. He was associated with neo-classicism and the "return to order" in the decade after the First World War. During his career he worked in a variety of...
painted "The Black Cat" in direct reference to Poe's short story.
External links
- Project Gutenberg: The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 2
- Complete Text at E A Poe Society of Baltimore
- Full text on PoeStories.com with hyperlinked vocabulary words.
- The Poe Decoder: The Black Cat
- Free audio recording of "The Black Cat" from Librivox
- Illustration and description of Severini's painting.
- The Black Cat reading by Gerry Hay