The Black Cat Symbolism
Throughout both Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories, The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat, he uses symbols. The symbols in both stories relate to each other and can also be compared and contrasted. The similar symbols such as the sound of the beating heart and the sound of the cat meowing are similar symbols, showing guilt and paranoia. Both their guilt and paranoia end up getting the best of them, as in the end, their guilt and paranoia get them caught for their killings. On the contrary, the sound of the heart beat was all in the narrator’s imagination while the sound of the cat’s meowing is real. Another pair of symbols that are similar is the old man and the cat. This pair of symbols represent the narrator’s misplaced anger and paranoia.
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He uses the similar symbols of the old man and the cat to symbolize misplaced anger and paranoia. Both the narrators kill a person or an animal of their uncontrolled paranoia. In The Tell Tale Heart page 1 states, “I loved the old man. He has never wronged me. He had never given me insult. . . He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees –very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” This quote can clearly illustrate the narrator’s love for the old man he knew, but even though he loved the old man, he was paranoid of his eye. The narrator is afraid of the eye because he feels that the eye can see through who he real1y is. He later kills the old man because his paranoia of the eye got the best of him, he couldn’t take it anymore. In his subconscious level, he fears the old man’s eye and later misplaces his anger onto the old man, and ended up killing him. Compared to in The Black Cat, page 6 states, “I killed it because I knew it had loved me, because it hadn’t hurt me, even because I knew that I was doing something terrible and wrong.” This quote illustrates the narrator’s paranoia of being loved and needed. He knew that the cat depended on him and needed him to survive but instead, the narrator started to think something of
He uses the similar symbols of the old man and the cat to symbolize misplaced anger and paranoia. Both the narrators kill a person or an animal of their uncontrolled paranoia. In The Tell Tale Heart page 1 states, “I loved the old man. He has never wronged me. He had never given me insult. . . He had the eye of a vulture –a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees –very gradually –I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.” This quote can clearly illustrate the narrator’s love for the old man he knew, but even though he loved the old man, he was paranoid of his eye. The narrator is afraid of the eye because he feels that the eye can see through who he real1y is. He later kills the old man because his paranoia of the eye got the best of him, he couldn’t take it anymore. In his subconscious level, he fears the old man’s eye and later misplaces his anger onto the old man, and ended up killing him. Compared to in The Black Cat, page 6 states, “I killed it because I knew it had loved me, because it hadn’t hurt me, even because I knew that I was doing something terrible and wrong.” This quote illustrates the narrator’s paranoia of being loved and needed. He knew that the cat depended on him and needed him to survive but instead, the narrator started to think something of