Symbolism In The Black Cat

In our culture, if one sees a black cat it is often viewed as a sign of bad luck—a superstition. The black cat symbolizes that wicked things are coming, much like the superstition of a raven. In Poe’s The Black Cat, the black cat is doing just that, it is symbolizing and foreshadowing the upcoming atrocities that will take place. There is also much symbolism in the choice of weapons the narrator uses to do his heinous acts. The narrator mentions how his wife “who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise” signifying that though the narrator is stating there is no reason why he brought this up, the reader should view the black cat as a superstition. After the narrators first house burned down the imprint on the one wall left standing becomes significant as “the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an
The narrator explains his first terrible act to Pluto when he states “I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket!”, this sets up powerful imagery of violence. Symbolically the narrator is sharpening the cat’s eye with his knife. Pluto now sees his owner as a violent and malicious person, as well as having only one actual eye left to view the world with changes the cats vision figuratively and literally. The narrator is also sharpening the readers eye with this description and imagery, making one note a change of vision within the story. The truth of the narrator is now visible, his insanity, his abuse of animals, and most likely his wife, is now evident. The fact that the second cat is also missing an eye furthers the theory that the black cat can see the narrators unraveling