Examples Of Perverseness In The Black Cat

Why are people tempted to do things they are not suppose to do? How do you let a problem go far beyond your reach to solve? Would you let it get to the point where the problem is bigger than you? In “The Black Cat” Edgar Allan Poe writes a story to teach people a lesson. Poe begins the story by introducing the nameless character in his prison cell who retells his story with all the horrible sins he had committed. The nameless narrator makes horrible decisions by giving into his perverseness. Perverseness is when a person does something they know that they should not do but still do. He first gives into his perverse self and cuts Pluto’s eye out, his black cat. Later in the story, he kills the cat by hanging it on a tree because he felt guilty of his actions. He then replaces Pluto, but ends up trying to kill the cat. Unfortunately, as he tries to kill the cat his wife interferes and he kills her instead. At the end of the story the narrator hides his wife’s body in the cellar wall. Four days later the cops come to his house to inspect, they searched his house then his cellar wall fell and exposed his dead wife’s body. He then is sentenced to be hanged. Poe uses symbolism, similes, and irony to convey that a person should be careful of their perverseness because if
First, Symbolism helped prove his argument, being that his cat stand for something else important in his argument. Then, similes helped him express how alcohol affected his life. Lastly, irony also proves his argument of one’s perverseness, he uses this to show that not everything is what you expect it to be, because perverseness always manages to take over. Overall, Edgar Allan Poe executed his argument very clearly and used these literary devices to support his