The narrator’s wife in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” half-jokingly mentions the idea that the titular cat is associated with witchcraft and black magic shortly after the couple gets Pluto as a pet.
Several happenings as described through the narrator’s eyes certainly indicate that the cat has mystical powers. The first of these occurs after the narrator’s house catches fire. On the only remaining wall, a curious placement of ashes shows the silhouette of a cat in negative space, meaning that the only part not covered in black ash is the outline of the animal.
Another event that suggests the cat is witchy is its reappearance at the tavern the narrator frequents. The second cat is curiously similar to Pluto, even though the narrator has previously hanged the cat in his cellar.
The third—and most poignant—event comes at the very end of the story when the narrator is showing the police officers around his new home. The one-eyed cat screeches from within the wall where the narrator has concealed his slain wife’s body, thereby outing him to the police. The cat is described as “crying out its revenge,” suggesting that the cat had a plan all along for ruining the narrator’s life after he killed it the first time.
Saturday, October 12, 2013
What events from The Black Cat seem to prove the wife's superstition about the cats to be correct?
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