How Does The Black Cat Change The Narrator's Personality

Words: 708
Pages: 3
Open Document
In the fictional horror story, “The Black Cat”, by Edgar Allen Poe, the narrator changes his personality over his lifetime, for the worse. The unnamed narrator in the story is on death row and is telling the story of his murder to get a better understanding of what happened. He reflects on his past actions hoping the readers can help him with what occurred. The narrator changes from an animal loving, solicitous man to an abusive, cruel one throughout his life, a fact he blames on his alcohol addiction and his perverse impulses. The narrator was compassionate, obedient, and caring from his infancy to early adulthood. At this time, the narrator is in prison on death row writing his story to make sense of what happened with the murder of his cat. The narrator starts to tell about how his personality was as a kid, “From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition,” (page 1) This quote illustrates that the narrator was once …show more content…
Towards the end of the story, the narrator has already committed the murder of his cat, Pluto #1. He talks about how his feelings are gone, his thoughts are wicked, and that there is no good left in him at all. The narrator goes into how the cat is really becoming an issue, irritating him very much, and how he contains no kindness whatsoever, “Evil thoughts became my sole intimates -- the darkest and most evil thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind,” (page 6). After the atrocity, the narrator has no heart, and is completely out of his mind. The choice to use the words “Evil thoughts became my sole intimates,” emphasizes that the narrator only thinks/believes in hurtful thoughts, and doing wrong for wrong. The killing of the cat changes the narrator to an even worse person than he already was. Following this disaster, the narrator becomes the most awful he has
Show More

Related Documents: How Does The Black Cat Change The Narrator's Personality

Poe Perverseness

“The Black Cat” by Edgar Allan Poe Have you ever thought of how perverseness can affect one's life? What would you do if perverseness of the mind took over your life? Would you stop making bad choices? In “The Black Cat”, by Edgar Allan Poe, a deranged narrator tells his readers about his experience of how a spirit of perverseness takes full control of him and it makes him commit gruesome crimes. In the beginning of the story, the narrator is in a prison cell awaiting his execution while he is waiting…

Words 1858 - Pages 8

Theme Of Shame In The Black Cat

Edgar Allen Poe’s The Black Cat follows a man who is confessing his most brutal sins that have led him to where he is now; in a jail cell awaiting his execution. This man commits some of the most heinous crimes imaginable, but he now recognizes that. The narrator is very ashamed of the man he has become. The opening two paragraphs do a thorough job in presenting the theme of shame that the narrator feels throughout the story. In The Black Cat the theme of shame is effectively demonstrated in the…

Words 1509 - Pages 7