Poe’s Depiction of Male Madness in The Black Cat (1845)

As humans, our connection to animals can become extremely personal. We see ourselves in different aspects of their lifestyle, we find ways to relate to them and can love them, or hate them, just as passionately as we do people in our lives. There’s a sense of dominance associated with owning a pet because of an animal’s reliance on human care to live, and it comes with a dark side because of household animals (like cats and dogs) being unable to physically defend themselves. Edgar Allen Poe’s “The Black Cat” (1845) unfolds a psychotic series of events that graphically portrays that dark side in a gruesomely violent way. Throughout my edition of his story, I will be exploring the ways in which our narrator, an unreliable confessionary, displays Poe’s idea of the thought process of a psychotic male killer through word choice, typography, and framework of the story’s narrator. I want to uncover the deliberate choices made by Poe that create this character and will be focusing on how our narrator changes as he tell us his story, or as more of his surprising intentions are relieved to his readers. The unpredictable thought process of our narrator also makes me interested in evaluating how Poe introduces him in such a psychotic way through the details of emotion, while violent scenes are written short and simple.

The source text is…

Poe, Edgar Allen. “Text: Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Black Cat’ (Text-03b), Tales (1845), Pp. 37-46.” Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore – Works – Tales – The Black Cat (Text-03b), 1845, eapoe.org/works/tales/blcatb.htm.

I will be comparing this version of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat” to an academic text that considers our narrator’s actions in terms of current psychology research, giving me a supportive insight into Poe’s writing tactics. In addition to this, a journal article from the University of St. Thomas will give me more insight into Poe’s writing motives and their associated meanings.

The images I have included in this edition are meant to give my readers a visual representation of Poe’s gothic intentions and our narrator’s dark mindset.

Annotated and edited by Kathleen Zeivel