The Mysteries of a Black Cat

Hi all,

This next blog post covers Edgar Allan Poe's, "The Black Cat". It is another impressing piece of literature from Poe. It is recommended that one reads the story multiple times and very slowly each time, because it is a little difficult to determine the protagonist and antagonist, as well as the repressed emotions.

Discuss who could be the protagonist and antagonist in The Black Cat; explain your logic and reasoning for why? Please remember to use details and specifics from the story to support your response.

This week, I have read another Edgar Allen Poe story: “The Black Cat”. Sometimes is Poe’s literary works, it is very deceitful to determine whom the protagonist and the antagonist are of the story. However, this story is no different, where it is crucial to analyze the whole work before establishing who the protagonist and antagonist are. In Gothic Literature, the protagonist is one who either voluntarily or involuntarily isolate himself. In “The Black Cat”, the protagonist is the narrator, for he is retelling what he has committed. The narrator explains, “Yet, mad am I not-and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events” (Poe 63). This quote entails the remorse of the protagonist as he is about to be hanged. The protagonist becomes remorseful, as he describes his cat as shameful, annoying, and disgusting. However, one can see that the cat represents the repressed emotions of the protagonist. This means the attitude he describes towards the cat, are the emotions he describes himself as. To which, these emotions of himself are accurate, for his state of being is diminished with his alcoholism. Gothic Literature always portrays the antagonist of the story as the one who prevails in the end. “….-by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalus and inhuman- a howl-a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the damned in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation” (Poe  70). This is where the police search the house of the protagonist, to find the evidence of his deed with this horrid scream. Immediately the police open up the wall, to see the murdered cat, where the fault lays upon the protagonist for the murder.       

What Gothic Literature that we've read so far is your favorite, explain why? (The Raven, The Masque of the Red Death, The Minister's Black Veil, or The Black Cat)

Overall, my favorite Gothic Literature story is Edgar Allen Poe’s “A Tell-Tale Heart”. What is significant about this text is the concentration of the repressed emotions of the protagonist. By reading the story, it is truly captivating to view such a vivid image of the protagonist’s repressed emotions of remorse and guilt in a dark setting. The protagonist explains, “Yes, he has been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions; but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel-although he neither saw nor heard-to feel the presence of my head within the room” (Poe 122). I could really relate to the protagonist’s emotions. The internal emotional world of the protagonist was portrayed very well too. The setting of the entire story was very dark and mysterious, which amplified the status of the protagonist. Reading about the remorse and guilt of the protagonist, was very passionate as it created an image in my head as if I was an onlooker on the scene as I read the story. Hence, when the narrator describes the beating heart, I could visualize the beating heart of the old man with the protagonist looking down on it with complete remorse and tears. Overall, this story of Poe’s is very realistic and deepening within Gothic Literature, and is was composed beautifully and with a great mind.

What are some similarities between all the Gothic Literature stories we've read so far? Again, be specific and use details in your response. 

In all, there is some life lesson or moral that is the concentration of each text, where the protagonist is affected and defeated by what he is trying to repress. In all Gothic Literature, the antagonist prevails over the protagonist, as the protagonist falls to his demise. In the Masque of the Red Death, the protagonist falls to his demise by the Red Death. The protagonist’s arrogance leads him to fall into the hands of the Red Death, as he was blinded by his society and was too absorbed with himself and his masquerade. In The Black Cat, the alcoholic protagonist finds his demise within his actions of murdering his first cat. His first black cat resurrects and becomes the protagonist’s second cat. When the protagonist murders the second cat, he places the cat inside of the wall so he does not have to live with his own disgust and annoyance. When the police arrive at the narrator's house, the cat in the wall screeches leaving the evidence of the murder, and the protagonist is left to his demise of being locked behind bars for his deeds. However, this same scenario is exemplified in The Cask of the Amontillado, where the protagonist is led drunkenly to his demise to be chained in the basement for his greed and lust for the Spanish sherry. In The Tell-Tale Heart, the protagonist murders an innocent old man. The protagonist buries the heart of the hold man underneath the floorboards in his home. When the police arrive at his home, the pressure and guilt of what he had done, leads him to his demise, as he exposes his deed and the beating heart of the old man to the police. In each of these stories, the protagonist reflects the internal emotional world of himself.     

That's what I have now, but I will be on in the next day or two to add more analysis, and post my supplements as well. Ps, I have been assigned to write an essay, so more analysis will be further coming as I begin to prepare to write. (Hence, that is why I have waited so long to post. But it is worth the wait.)  

Allison