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The Cat’s Out of the Bag: Feminine Rage and The Black Cat

This image is complimentary to the text, as it illustrates the idea of vengeance and rage within the cat. We see it making a predatory face along with the image of the transparent noose, indicating the cat’s memory of the tragic event.

In this edition of The Black Cat, Poe introduces readers to a narrator with a fear of femininity, along with insecurity about his own manhood and emotions. By building on these ideas using the text and scholarly sources, I hope to provide a better explanation for the violence we see perpetrated against women and animals. I am going to be dissecting how this violence finds its source in the narrator’s repressed emotions along with his fear of being perceived as feminine. I will also be delving into the role of the cat throughout the tale, breaking down how the cat works as a symbol of feminine rage along with those familiar concepts of repressed emotion and shame regarding masculinity.

 

The source text is:

Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore – Works – Tales – the Black Cat (Reprint).  www.eapoe.org/works/tales/blcatd.htm.

Image is by: Christoffer Nillsen

 

License

Tales of Edgar Allan Poe: Critical and Creative Editions Copyright © by Abby Embree; Andrew Burgess; Ann Manley; Bri Brands; Dylan Melchior; Elizabeth Klink; Emi O’Brochta; Emma Grause; Georgia Aduddell; Grace Martin; Iysis Shaffers; Jess Quintero; Kade Cockrum; Karaline Schulte; Katherine Bonny; Kathleen Zeivel; Leah Wegmann; LeDavid Olmstead; Link Linquist; Logan Williams; Lorna Bauer; Maddie Patterson; Madeleine Heath; Matthew Brown; Nathan Peterson; Olivia Noll Reinert; Piper Wiley; Sarah Inouye; Sona Xiong; Spencer Cooper-Ohm; and Trick Lucero. All Rights Reserved.

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