the black cat question

The Black Cat Question
1. What are the conflicts in “The Black Cat”? (What types of conflict, moral, intellectual, or emotional do you see in this story?
There are many conflicts in “The Black Cat”. The narrator likes animals, and he loves his wife, but he killed them because he is an alcoholic. The killing of the black cat and his wife by the narrator are two example of physical conflict. When the man sobered on the second day, he feels guilty about the killing of Pluto, but he killed the second cat and his wife again. This is an example of moral conflict. He was intoxicated and lost control of himself, but he was still rational enough to come out with an idea to entomb his wife’s corpse in the wall of the cellar. This decision is the example of intellectual conflicts.

2. What are some themes in the story? How do they relate to the plot and characters?
One of the themes is too much alcohol will affect your behavior in a negative way. The narrator is an alcoholic and his action, that is the killing, is a result of alcohol. In another word, alcohol is the key of the changing of the narrator’s personality. When he was young and didn’t drink, he loves his wife, and Pluto is his best friend. But after he became an alcoholic, he killed Pluto in a terrible way, and killed his wife and his second cat in the vault. He becomes insane and crazy because of his obsession with alcohol.

3. What are some symbols in “The Black Cat”? How do they relate to plot and character?
There are many symbols in “The Black Cat”. A major symbol is the black cat because it is the victim of the murder, and it represents bad luck, evil and death. It shows at the end of the story, it sit on the head of his wife’s corpse in the wall. Alcohol is the symbol of insanity. There is a huge difference between the narrator when he drinks and when he doesn’t drink. Alcohol represents author’s terrible and horrible behavior. The eye of the black cat is another symbol in the story. After the conflagration happened in the narrator’s house, he found an impression of a gigantic cat on the wall. The cat was looking at him. The eye of the black cat is a symbol of being watched.

4. How essential is the setting to the story? Could the story have taken place anywhere else?
The setting is important, because it gives the reader a scary, creepy feel of the story. The caller is important in the setting of the story. The killing happened in the cellar in narrator’s house. It is dark and frightening. The author killed his wife and he entombed his wife’s corpse in the cellar. The cellar is a place that nobody can find it, so no one can know the narrator’s wife had died. It’s a good place to put corpse. If the story take place somewhere else, police will find the corpse quickly, and the black cat won’t be a important role in the story, the mood can not be that scary.

5. What is the mood of the story? Use specific example to support your claim.
The mood is dark, depressing, scary and unhappy during the whole story. The readers feel this because of the cruelty and violence. A good example is when the narrator maltreated Pluto and killed it; he “grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket”, and hung it on the tree with a noose. The way he kill the cat is insane. Another example is when the author killed his wife. He buried the axe in his wife’s brain, and hid her in the wall of the cellar. Both of these two examples show the cruelty and violence, they make the reader feels scary, disgusting and terrible when read the story.

6. What style/literary devices of writing does Edgar Allan Poe utilize to make this a gothic piece?
The style of writing “The Black Cat” is first person. The author uses “I” and always talks about how he think, how he feel and how he reacts to circumstance. It’s easy for reader to think in his way and to have more sympathy and empathy with victims. The author utilized many detailed and descriptive vocabularies, for example, “intoxicated”, “unfathomable” to show very clearly that how crazy he is. The author also utilizes foreshadowing in the story. The dead of Pluto foreshadows the dead of the second cat and his wife, it shows the narrator is insane. Another example is the impression of the cat on the wall. It’s the foreshadowing of the appearance of the second black cat.