The Black Cat Symbolism Essay

610 Words3 Pages
The Black Cat, written by Edgar Allen Poe, is a self destructive story that involves an internal conflict between a man and his conscience. The story consists of a man with a problem with consumption of alcohol, eventually turning him into an alcoholic. The man purchases a cat and at first, enjoys the cat’s company around his house. However, as the story progresses, the man’s alcohol problem worsens and he begins to question the cat. He begins to blame the cat for everything that goes wrong for him. As the accusations towards the cat pile up, the man begins to lose it, going into periods of rage against the cat. Aggression and alcoholism take over the man’s body, as he ends up fatally hanging the cat. The story controversially states that the man purchases a second cat after killing the first; however, there are two reasons that show substantial evidence of the existence of only one cat: Symbolism and Revenge.…show more content…
The cat’s name is Pluto; Pluto is the God of the dead and God of the Underworld. In addition, both cat’s are large and black; however, one has a white patch on his chest in the shape of the Gallows, which is a place where people are hung. The man hung the first cat, which demonstrates the direct correlation between the first cat and the second cat. The second cat has a patch in the Shape of the Gallows to symbolize what his owner did to him. Furthermore, after the man kills the first cat, the house burns down. When the man and his wife go to visit the ruins of the house, all that remains is one wall; on that wall, the only thing left on it is a picture of a cat. The man then comes up with an illogical reason that the cat appeared on the wall by means of a chemical reaction. Symbolism illustrates the fact that the man never purchased a second cat; he devised a spiritual cat in his mind that reminded him of the horrible act that he committed against his only
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