Preview

Similarities Between A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Black Cat

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
133 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Similarities Between A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Black Cat
Pet owners love their pets, but never expect them to bring misfortune to them. In Flannery O’Connor’s A Good Man is Hard to Find and Edgar Allen Poe’s Black Cat we explore common themes of death through the owners cats. Both of these cats played a huge role resulting in the fate of their owners and the loved ones surrounded by them; they brought death and misfortune to them. They also share many similarities and differences we can find throughout each story. They differ between their importance to the story and are similar in representing death. Also both felines bring out characteristics of their owners that ultimately lead to their downfall. Both cats explore a common theme of death while sharing similarities and having their differences
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Comparing The Black Cat And Hop-Frog
    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Comparing The Black Cat And Hop-Frog

    The stories “The Black Cat” and “Hop-Frog” by Edgar Allan Poe are similar based on the presence of twisted love and the lack of guilt.…

    • 330 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    The Black Cat Analysis Essay
    • 1596 Words
    • 7 Pages

    The Black Cat Analysis Essay

    In “The Black Cat” the narrator is shown as an insane and superstitious character. His insanity was evident when he felt, “absolute dread of the beast” (4), which was his cat, when he “slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree” (3), and when he later went on to “bury the axe in her [his wife’s] brain” (5), when she tried to stop him from murdering another cat. The narrator’s unstable mind compares to “The Masque of the Red Death” as Poe also portrays Prince Prospero as insane but in a different way. The prince was not a murderous, bloodthirsty creature, but a carefree person who did not seem to care for the Red Death, a devastating disease who brought death wherever it traveled. Prospero was “happy and dauntless and sagacious” (1) and felt that “the external world would take care of itself” (1) and also thought that, “it was folly to grieve, or think” (1). Prospero’s carefree thoughts show that the scope of his insanity was not only placing his life in danger, but the lives of all his subjects as well. The jeopardy Prince Prospero placed his guests in compares to “The Black Cat” as the narrator also placed the life of his wife in danger with his superstitions and his tendencies to gravitate towards extreme measures. As he felt that his wife was taking the side of the cat, the narrator, one day decided to try and murder the cat, but instead ended up…

    • 1596 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Guilt In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe
    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Guilt In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

    The main character in “The Black Cat “by Edgar Allen Poe, is also the narrator of the story since it is told in first person point of view. He represents a man who has lost everything due to drinking, although one thing stays with him all the way through, his guilt. Guilt never leaves you no matter how much you try to make it. His drinking and his growing insanity only cause more pain to himself and to others. By the end of this analysis, you will know how the narrator’s never-ending guilt affected him and the story and why it is the theme. You will also know how the narrator showed his guilt, and how the story showed his guilt.…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Alcoholism In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe
    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Alcoholism In The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

    The problems of alcoholism and insanity are recurring themes in Poe’s literary works. One can say that “The Black Cat,” one of Poe’s short stories, portrays much of the author’s own views on his substance abuse problems and mental illness. The unnamed narrator from “The Black Cat,” struggles with his addiction to alcohol and his hatred for two cats become prevailing. The narrator states, however, that he was never like this before he loved animals, “never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them.” (Poe, 3). The narrator takes on a cat and cares for it, however, as his drinking problem progressed, he states, “I grew day by day more moody… my disease grew upon me.” (Poe, 4). After a night out drinking, he decides to cut out one of the cat’s eyes and ultimately, kills the cat. Later, another cat strangely identical to the first cat with one eye comes around and as the narrator tries to kill the second cat he ends up killing his wife instead. He buries the body of his wife and the second cat behind a wall and police later hear the cat calling out from inside the wall. In relation to Poe’s life, Poe was known to love cats and had a female cat named Catterina (Mercier). The killing of the first cat relates to Poe’s own destruction of the things he loved and desired due to alcoholism. He lost his job in 1837 due to his drinking and feuding with other editors (Edgar Allan Poe, Encyclo.) The killing of an innocent wife can closely relate to Poe’s views of women in his own life, through the deaths of both his mother figures and then eventually his wife. Poe writes about women who carry a unique beauty to them. The women are compassionate to the men they…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Theme Of Fear In The Masque Of The Red Death By Edgar Allan Poe
    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Theme Of Fear In The Masque Of The Red Death By Edgar Allan Poe

    In “The Black Cat,” Poe uses words such as “horror” (1), “murder” (6) and “gore” (6), all of which emphasized the narrator’s insanity and his fear of the cat which he felt he must remove. His abhorrence of the cat grew when it, “inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth” (5). This caused the narrator to feel like he was possessed by a demon, with his original soul now gone, replaced by a “fiendish malevolence” (5). Clearly, the narrator is someone who fears everything and has something wrong mentally. Additionally the narrator had a growing fear of his cat referring to it as a “monster” (5) and a “burden on my soul,” (5). These thoughts show that the narrator felt like the cat knew of his hideous deed and it caused him much guilt, even though the cat didn’t. This diction contrasts with, “The Masque of the Red Death,” as Poe initially uses words such as “happy” (1), “palaces” (1) and “magnificent” (1), to suggest the Prince Prospero doesn’t seem to care much for the dangers of the terrible disease--the Red Death--but instead wants to focus on having a good time and partying when throughout his kingdom, the Red Death is claiming many lives. This originally portrays that the palace of Prince Prospero is a much safer and joyful place than the deranged lair of the narrator in “The Black Cat,” and it seems like…

    • 1537 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Compare and Contrast Essay the Tell Tale Heart and the Black Cat
    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Compare and Contrast Essay the Tell Tale Heart and the Black Cat

    In this paragraph, I will talk about the story, “The Black Cat”. In the beginning of the story it shows how the narrator was a very happy child and that he loved animals very much. He married early and got a cat named ‘Pluto’. After a while he turned into an alcoholic, which made him maltreat his wife, and pets, except he restrained himself of mistreating Pluto his cat. One day he came home intoxicated. He noticed that Pluto was avoiding him. He seized the cat, and in response, Pluto gave him a slight wound with his teeth. Then the narrator cut out one of Pluto’s eyeballs. After that incident Pluto avoided the narrator even more. Then one morning, with tears in his eyes, he put a noose…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Mental Disorder in E. A. Poe’s Prose
    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages

    Mental Disorder in E. A. Poe’s Prose

    [2] Edgar Allan Poe, “The Black Cat,” An Exploration of Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe, 15 May. 2009 .…

    • 2535 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Poe Compare and Contrast Essay
    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Poe Compare and Contrast Essay

    Poe’s stories; stories both feared, and loved. Poe lived a very mysterious life. He was known as an alcoholic, and a drug addict, but who was Poe? We know that his childhood was rough, and that death took away many of his loved ones. He had many tragedies in his life, and only lived to be 40. Two of Poe’s stories, “The Masque of the Red Death,” and “The Black Cat,” are not similar in any ways, except the recurring deaths in the plot. The characters, setting, and conflict are also elements of fiction that make these two different stories unique.…

    • 1108 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Tell Tale Heart and the Black Cat.
    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Tell Tale Heart and the Black Cat.

    The two short stories that I have chosen by Edgar Allan Poe are The Tell Tale Heart and The Black Cat. These two stories in particular have many things in common as far as technique goes, but they do have some significant differences between the two. In this paper I will try to compare and contrast these two short stories and hopefully bring something to the readers attention that wasn't there at first.…

    • 695 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    A Dog's Death Analysis
    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages

    A Dog's Death Analysis

    The reason why I chose to write about of A Dog’s Death, is because it reminds me of a dog that I had growing up. Whenever the dog got sick my brothers, sisters and I would always think the worst about what happened to him when he got sick. Since we lived in the country on farm land there was always the possibility that he may have gotten hit by a car, bitten by a snake, or poisoned by neighbors that didn’t like him. In John Updike’s poem, “Dog’s Death”, the dog who dies in the poem and her owner expresses a sense of abandonment which illustrates the mourning of one who loses their dog. I think the approach for analyzing this poem will best fit for reflecting the imagination, tone, image, and similarly designed to reveal the tone I observed in the poem. The theme of “Dog’s Death” is based on the life and death of a family dog. When the author, John Updike starts at the beginning explaining how the dog might have gotten the fatal injury. This short paper will discuss the dog’s death as a theme for this short story. The beginning talks of the fatal injury that might have brought this family pet to her demise. The family thinks that she must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car (Updike, Clugston, 2010). Imagination comes into play by speaking of the dog learning to use the potty on the newspaper, and then again it could also be that the paper was put down on the floor because the dog was suffering from diarrhea and didn’t have a chance to go on the newspaper either. It gives the reader a chance to think of a pet they once had and empathize with the writer about his dog dying (Clugston, 2010).…

    • 911 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Vivid Imagery of "The Black Cat"
    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Vivid Imagery of "The Black Cat"

    The use of vivid imagery in “The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most fascinating aspects of this story to me. Poe shapes the mood of suspense using language, symbols, and the supernatural in such a dark and intriguing way. These three things create a sense of foreshadowing, which helps set the stage for the reader and navigates the path from one shocking event to the next. Poe’s use of these three literary techniques that incorporate an added twist as the narrator hopes that the reader, like himself, will be convinced that these events were not "...an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects" (Poe, 695).…

    • 1435 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Raven
    • 1223 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Raven

    Death. A strong topic, frequently but solemnly discussed. However, when I read Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, I was immediately captivated by the new angle brought to my attention regarding death. While the topic of death is usually associated with either sympathy or horror, Poe succeeded in portraying a feeling caught between the two; and at the same time bringing forth new feelings I would never thought to consider regarding death. These feelings reflect a sorrow so deep it morphs into a psychological madness, a feeling that the pain death brings has ruined one forever. After analyzing this poem I came to the conclusion that Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” demonstrates that the sorrow the death of a loved one brings will stay with you forever. Poe communicated this theme through abstract language & connotation, tone, and allusion.…

    • 1223 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Analysis Of The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe
    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Analysis Of The Black Cat By Edgar Allan Poe

    Edgar Allan Poe, reputed as the father of American short stories, is a poet, writer and literary critic of nineteenth century. His works, most of which explore the dark side of consciousness and subconsciousness of human beings, was well-known for horror and mystery. "The Black Cat" is one of Poe's masterpieces. It depicts love, hatred and fear between men through the narration of the changing relationship between a mentally abnormal man and a black cat. Loneliness, death, torture and abnormal psychology are core elements in "The Black Cat" This thesis aims to conduct a research on how Allan Poe managed to achieve psychological horror in "The Black Cat."…

    • 313 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Blue Bowl Analysis
    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Blue Bowl Analysis

    The short story I chose is “The Blue Bowl” by Jane Kenyon. In this story the author’s pet has died. The theme to me would be the death of a pet, or more specific death of a cat. This poem tells the tale of a family that has lost their pet. The poem demonstrates the pain of the family members due to the loss. The narrator briefly gives you a description of the family pet, “His long red fur, the white feathers between his toes, and his long, not to say aquiline, nose.” The narrator takes you into the pain and helplessness of the family when their pet cat died. This poem is full of symbolism.…

    • 483 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Comparing the Black Cat and the Fall of the House of Usher
    • 318 Words
    • 1 Page

    Comparing the Black Cat and the Fall of the House of Usher

    Another common theme between the two stories is struggle- trying to get out of a situation when you just cannot. In The Black Cat, the narrator tries to escape from the guilt of killing Pluto, but cannot, so he ends up killing his wife. He could not do anything to stop himself from behaving the way he did. This is extremely similar to The Fall of the House of Usher where Roderick Usher is trying to escape from the mental illness that he has. Asking his childhood friend to visit, he had hoped that it could help bring him out of his shell, maybe just miraculously cure him, but it does not. In the end, just like the narrator in The Black Cat, he ends up loosing something extremely precious- his life. Poe also uses Single Unifying Effect in both stories. Five examples of him using it in The Black Cat are: The voice from the tomb (the scream); the death of Pluto, his first cat; the ruining of his house; the murder of his wife and the image of the…

    • 318 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More