Title: The Black Cat Page 648 to 655 A.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

In The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe, an unnamed character lives with his wife and also with a black cat. The cat was very fond of the narrator that he followed him almost everywhere he goes. The narrator went out for a drink and came home drunk noticing the cat had been ignoring him and got irritated and took out a pocket knife, stabbed the cat's eye out, and then hung the cat later on. Another cat returns and looks similar to the other and was fond of the narrators's wife which disturbed the man. He tried to kill this cat also but instead when his wife grabbed his hand he swung back, and hit her head with a axe. He then hid his wife in the damp walls of the cellar and he himself had got killed. B. STATEMENT OF THEME: The primary theme I believe in The Black Cat is conscience. Conscience is the inner sense of what is right or wrong in one's conduct or motives, impelling one toward right action. In The Black Cat, the narrator first stabs the cat's eye out, and then the memory of him stabbing the cat made him hang the cat. The cat's image of being hanged then appears on the wall during the fire and a new cat then appears. The new cat then reminds him of the old cat since they look almost identical. The feeling of the new cat favoring his wife makes the narrator angry and wants to kill the new cat. He then gets the memory of him killing the old cat and when he tries to kill the cat, but he kill's his wife since she supported the new cat. He then is reminded of him killing his wife when the police come. In this story everything haunts the narrator in his mind. He is influenced from alcohol which disturbs the conscience and everything he sees wrong is just his conscious making him feel the cat is ignoring him. C. AUTHOR'S BIOGRAPHY: Edgar Allan Poe lived from 1809-1849. He was born in Boston from his mother who was an actress and his father who was an actor. His mother died when he was two years old and his father deserted his family. He then lived with his godfather, John Allah, a wealthy merchant. Edgar spent one term at the University of Virginia and then began to drink and gamble in which his godfather disowned him. His fiction was a major influence on world literature. His best poem was The Raven ( 1845) and among his best stories there is The fall of the House of Usher. D. INFLUECES ON THE AUTHOR'S WORK: Edgar's tragedies in his life and the inner mind influenced his work. When he was little he loved writing poems for the loves of his life. But when he got into his his adult stages he began to write more serious, dark, and disturbing stories due to alcohol. When Edgar was about to turn three years old his brother and sister were orphaned and his mother died due to tuberculosis and since then he has always been scared of death that when he walked past cemeteries he was always scared the ghosts will be the ones to take him next. Maybe that's why Edgar writes such stories like The Black Cat because he wants people to know how he experienced death in his family and just a way he expresses his emotions. In conclusion, Edgar Allan Poe was influenced by many tragedies in his life to write the way he writes.