There are many evil people in the world, but it is difficult to determine what drives them. People are usually influenced by outside forces to do these uncontrolled acts of harm. The Black Cat is a short story where the protagonist suffers from a drinking addiction, which eventually leads him to abuse both his wife and pets. Edgar Allan Poe explores this theme by using imagery, figurative language, and first person perspective.
The first-person perspective of “The Black Cat” helps the reader better understand the narrator and his motives by placing themselves in the shoes of the protagonist and learning the thoughts behind the murder. The Black Cat tells us that the narrator’s disease has grown on him. Alcohol is a disease, after all. Pluto, who had become old and was therefore peevish began to feel my bad temper. As the story unfolds, we learn that the protagonist’s alcoholism is making him sick, and that this is affecting his relationship with his wife and pet animals. Pluto is affected by his irritability. Addicts are prone to having explosive anger outbursts. This illustrates that alcohol has a negative effect on the narrator. It is making him act in a way that is not his own.
Poe, by using imagery, gives readers a more in-depth view of his narrator and what is happening to him. This helps the reader understand why the narrator must kill both his cat as well as his wife. The narrator clearly describes the scene, saying, “I took my pen-knife out of my waistcoat-pocket, opened, grabbed it by the throat, then cut the eye of the poor creature from its socket! The narrator writes, “I blushed, I burned, I shuddered, as I wrote the horrible atrocity”. The narrator comes home drunk and uses his penknife, while strangling Pluto. The idea of slicing an eyeball free with a penknife would be much more brutal and horrifying than if you used a standard knife. The image of a person smothering the eyes out of a beautiful cat is vivid. In retrospect, he can feel regret for blushing or shuddering. The reader begins to see the narrator in a new light. As the narrator describes, “the falling of other wall had compressed the victim in my cruelty to the substance of newly-spread plaster, which lime with flames, ammonia of the carcass, completed the portraiture that I saw”. Pluto, his cat, had just been murdered by the protagonist because of his alcoholism. The narrator is now explaining and feeling what he sees as the house burns. The imagery is used to help the reader understand not only the situation but also how the protagonist feels about hanging Pluto.
The use figurative language enhances the action in the story, and also reflects the intentions expressed by the protagonist. Figurative language is used to describe the story’s intentions. For example, “The fury a demon immediately possessed me”. The protagonist is drunk at this point in the story and does not feel like he has control over himself. He feels possessed. This hyperbole implies that the force behind his actions is alcohol. When he says that the source of his actions was not deliberate, we understand it to be alcohol. Hyperbole is used to explain the author’s motivation and intensify the action. Later on in the tale, the author uses the metaphor “I had walled-up the monster inside the tomb!” to describe his own wife. Poe uses metaphors to describe the protagonist’s wife as a “monster” that he has buried in a wall. This action is performed by the protagonist to avoid being arrested for murder. The murder of the wife is justified when the protagonist claims that this monster was controlling him and preventing him from feeling himself. The metaphor which the protagonist uses to justify the murder makes it clear that he believes his wife is a monster. The previous image of his wife was that she was caring and loving. This metaphor shows that the protagonist is changing his worldview because of his alcoholism.
Poe’s imagery, first-person viewpoint, and use of figurative words and phrases reveal the effects that chronic alcoholism has on a person. Alcoholism and illnesses can change someone’s perspective on the world. This distress is transformed into anger and hatred that can cause people to act in ways that are unjust or immoral. Does alcoholism cause you to suffer?